An Atypical Sunday Afternoon

 On a typical Sunday afternoon, I needed to fuel my diet Dr Pepper addiction problem. I stepped out of the house. What happened next would change it from typical to about as atypical as things can get, and for someone else, it would change their life forever.

Christopher and Family, Myself, Richardson FD
crew, and Medical City Staff.
Source: Medical City

So I decide to take a trip out of the house. My wife is asleep. My oldest daughter is in her bedroom. I had to load the younger kid in the van, which is usually an easy thing. So off we start.

The youngest gets herself into our van. I look to my left and see someone walking in the street two houses over. That house doesn’t have a sidewalk on that side for weird historical reasons, so that is not unusual.

I recognize the guy. I have seen him many times. I have waved to him from the car many times. I’m a waver. It is what I do. He is obviously a waver too because he usually waved back and smiled. So seeing him walking is normal and not worth a second glance because I’ve seen him so many times before. The kid loads herself in and snaps her seat belt in. It is all perfectly normal and even banal. (I am going to leave names out for now because that is how I experienced it.)

For whatever reason, I look to the left and the guy I saw less than 30 seconds before is now lying at the intersection near my house. Is he taking a break? Is he lying in the grass like some landscape workers do? All of this was the automatic reflex response of the brain trying to figure out what I was seeing. These questions last only a few seconds.

My radar of concern pops up and I decide to investigate. The kid is in? Yes. She has her tablet and the van door is open? Good. No problem. Popping over for a bit won’t be a problem.

I walk down the sidewalk toward him.

Let’s pause. I have lived here for more than two decades. I’ve walked this direction countless times. The feel of everything in peripheral vision, directly in front, or the cracks in the sidewalk is burned into my mind just like any place someone is familiar with. I have experienced it so many times. Everyone knows places like this where if a single thing is out of place, they will know it. This does not feel right.

I pick up the pace. I start to run. I pull out my phone while I am running and start to enter, “9-1-1.” My finger is ready to hit send.

I don’t get across that typical street that is the same as thousands of neighborhood streets before I realize nothing is right about this. I hit send. I see him lying on his back. It doesn’t look like he is breathing. Expletives run through my mind.

“OK. Get this right,” is the verbal thought that passes through my mind involuntarily. I think for about half a second to get my wife because she works in medical settings. In the next fraction of a second, I realize that it would take too long, so I dismiss that idea.

I am alone… kind of. It is me and him. It is close to 100 degrees and this is not in the shade. Speaking of that, I glance straight down the sidewalk and my van door is open and the kid is still strapped in.

The phone does not connect instantly. “What the…”  You know what I am thinking. This is not the time for that! A rising bit of panic subsides as it rings.

“Richardson 9-1-1. What’s the location of your emergency?” says the dispatcher. (More on her later.)

I tell her the address of the house across the street because I know that address. There is no time to do math and figure out the exact number of where I am standing.

An older gentleman stops his car at the stop sign as he sees the scene and raises his eyebrows. I wave my free hand. He gets out of his car. By this time, I have bent down and note he is definitely not breathing.

The older gentleman (whose name I do not know and still do not know) asked me what had happened. That was a very quick conversation. He says, “He might need CPR” or something like that. That much was becoming glaringly obvious, but I say, “I don’t really know CPR.” That is only half-true as we will learn in a moment. Things are happening so fast that I probably do not remember the order of what was said with the 9-1-1 operator.

Eventually, after questions about his condition, that voice on the phone asks, “Does anyone there know CPR?”

I hesitate and say, “Erm. Not really.”

Let us pause again. Why didn’t I say Yes or No? Because the answer wasn’t Yes or No. I have seen CPR demonstrated many times. I am not talking about seeing it in a movie or a TV show. I have had a job orientation where a CPR video was part of that and others. Was I certified or had I ever practiced it? No. So was I totally ignorant? Also, no. In the news story, it is suggested the answer was, “No,” which was not technically wrong but not entirely correct either. I am telling this part because that grey area is a part of this story and part of why the story ends the way it did.

Like many communities, Richardson has a leadership training and community education program. Ours happens to be run by the Richardson Chamber of Commerce and is called Leadership Richardson. I was in that program about 15 years ago. During Public Safety Day in that program, someone from the Richardson Fire Department gave a CPR demonstration. I remember that demonstration more than any other I had seen.

So when the 9-1-1 operator said, “I am going to give you some instructions” and then began to instruct me, it wasn’t so much learning from square one. A lot of it was recalling what I had already seen and heard in years past.

Before we got to this moment, I had already thought I could start CPR even before the older gentleman suggested it, but would I really know what the hell I was doing? Would I do more harm than good? I wasn’t sure. The dispatcher’s direct and professional voice not only got me to recall and remember but her voice also gave me permission.

So I listen to her and do as best as I can as she instructs. I had the foresight to put the phone on speaker and put in in the grass. She even asked, “Am I on speakerphone?”

“Yes,” I said which I took as a sign that I was going the right way as both hands were free.

She asked if I needed her to count for me as I started pressing on this complete stranger’s chest. “Yes,” I said because, yes, indeed I did. This person was quite possibly dying right in front of me and in my hands. I need all the help I can get.

She counts… “One. two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four.” By this time a third person has stopped. A Hispanic gentleman. The older man and him are trying to shade him in the hot sun.

I realize my daughter is still in the van. I tell the older gentleman I might have to run over there. I have a clear view down the sidewalk and I have been continually glancing over. “Jennifer [my wife] will freak out if she sees her there… then she will see this, she will run over here.” She has worked in medical settings for a long time.

I keep going, “One. Two. Three. Four…”

During this time, he gasps for breath which fills me with incredible relief that maybe we are getting somewhere. That is the first sign we have seen. I tell the dispatcher this.

She tells me if he has gasps or other short breaths (and honestly, I can’t remember her exact words) she says to keep going. Do. Not. Stop.

I am sweating by now and in fact I am dripping sweat on him. Under the circumstances this does not bother me in the least. The movement and sweat are making my glasses slip off. I take them off and throw them a few feet into the grass. They are unnecessary.

She asks if I am tired and if someone else needs to take over. “No,” I say. Yes its hard but I am ok. He gasps a few times but does not start breathing on his own.

“If he is gasping,” I think to myself, “then he is still with us. Keep going.”

The dispatcher says something like, “They are on the way” or “The cavalry is on the way” or something. I can’t recall.

“Why is that taking so long,” was my thought and we will find out in just a moment and was a bizarre thing to think.

The fire truck and other vehicles pull up. She tells me to keep going until they take over. I acknowledge this but I do not remember what I said.

A paramedic brings equipment up right next to us and takes over. He starts going hard and fast into chest compressions.

I get up and find my glasses. I walk away a distance to give them space. All kinds of things are being said and shouted. “I want to get him into the unit.” Other things are urgently said back and forth. I am sweating a bit and my breathing and heart rate are elevated. Other than sweating, I hadn’t noticed until this second.

I turn my back to the scene for a few moments and put my hands on my face and take a deep breath.

The professionals are now at work. How long was that? 10 minutes? 15? It felt like that.

“Did I do enough?” “Was I fast enough?” Anyone who knows me probably wouldn’t be surprised that I wasn’t patting myself on the back immediately.

Time will tell and I go back to the car to get the kid. I take her out and put her in the house and she doesn’t seem to mind.

I wake up my wife and tell her, “Um. I just did CPR on someone in the street.”

She wakes up immediately and blurts, “What? What happened?!” So I tell her. She is obviously not going back to sleep.

I walk back outside and stand on my lawn looking over. He is in the back of the ambulance now.

Eventually the EMS person in charge comes over and tells me they have something of a pulse. He asks if I am OK.

“Yeah. Just kind of shocked,” I say as he nods seemingly in understanding.

I am surprised but not surprised he came and asked about me of all things. Having been through this up to this point, I felt some communication with him because clearly, he knew that this might emotionally affect me and he was right. Life or death or no control at all was right there in my hands. So yeah. “Are you OK,” is the correct thing to ask.

The ambulance was there a while which bothered me. My wife was less bothered and she said, “They didn’t speed off with the sirens. Maybe that’s a good sign.”

Obviously, I was shaken and a first responder (and I cannot recall which one) told me they were going to talk to his wife. I talked to a few friends. I talked to my wife.

I posted a very vague social media post to friends only that mentioned I did CPR. I looked up statistics and learned the outcome of CPR outside hospitals is 6 to 8% success rate or close to that.

What was the outcome? Days and then two weeks went by. In the following days, I checked obituaries. I found nothing. Would I ever know what happened?

One day, weeks later, two folks from Richardson Fire knock on my door. I was not ready for that, so I throw on a shirt and run outside. They ask if I am the person who did CPR. I tell them yes. They had an address but did not know my name. At this point, I still don’t know his name. They tell me he has been discharged. All of this is shock number two.

These are not the paramedics who were there that day. They didn’t know my experience of the story. In fact, nobody but my wife and a few friends did. So I tell them.

From the outside, we are always impressed by medical personnel who show up in unknown places on a moment’s notice not knowing what might be there. Instead, they are genuinely thankful for me.

They invite me to a ceremony where the EMS crew, the patient (whose name I still would not learn for another week), his family, myself, physicians and others involved will all get together and celebrate a story that beat the odds.

It is at that point I realize something that should have been obvious. There is a web of people and institutions that make these things happen. I was an essential part of this story but so are these other people and institutions each day. If one of those links in the chain isn’t there then this story does not have the same outcome.

I eventually meet everyone and learn everyone’s name on that day of celebration. The dispatcher – who I declare has the most ironic name of the year, Omega – was my lifeline in this story. The EMS crew: Captain King, Noah, Nicholas, Trevor, Zachary, and Brandon.

Christopher and Myself. Source: Medical City

I learned that the time from when I called 9-1-1 to the time the EMS arrives was not 10 minutes or more. In reality it was four minutes and 9 seconds. I would learn that the EMS crew was able to get his heart started again.

I would learn that these were only the first steps. Much more work from the team at Medical City Dallas was the reason he was able to leave the hospital.

It was only a few days before that day of celebration that I learned the name of the man we helped. His name is Christopher and I finally met him and his family.

Myself and Christopher's Kids.
Source: Medical City

I tell this story for a few reasons. Someone might read this and find him or herself in that same confusing, stressed and near panicked situation. Know that you are capable of handling it. You will stand on others’ shoulders and they yours.

If you happen to be able to learn CPR in any fashion pay attention to that and appreciate it. Would things have turned out the same if I had not paid any attention to it when demonstrated to me?

Another is to appreciate the interconnectedness of community. Ultimately, this is about community. While I have told this story it isn’t really about me. We live in divisive times where people are hating a neighbor for their opinions and the word “I” is being used more than “We.” I didn’t ask his political opinions. I didn’t look at his skin color. I didn’t ask who he votes for. I didn’t ask his religion or if he had a religion at all.

I did what – in the moment – was natural for a rational evolved person to do. I would not realize something else until later but my actions were given confidence – instilled unconsciously – by knowing there was help around me to do what I could not do yet I could still do what I needed to do.

If I had not been instilled, from a young age, with the confidence in methods of science, which produced the pieces that made this outcome possible, then I would not have acted as I did. It is subtle and important to understand what this means. I am not merely saying that “outcomes of science were used” but that because this had been instilled in me I could have the confidence to rise to the moment as a moral person should.

Never take these systems of mutual support for granted. If I had grown up in a different place, and the state of the community was different, I - maybe possibly - might have behaved differently, and if those community-supported systems were not what they are, then my efforts might have been for nothing.

I received an award. It is obviously very gratifying to be recognized for this. Because of the news story (linked below), I have been recognized in public places. “Weren’t you in the news?” Friends I haven’t spoken to in a while have called me up or written.

I could post a picture of the physical award I was given which is VERY nice. Trust me. It is but I won’t show a picture of that because it is not about me.

The picture below is the real award. This is the real honor. Thank you for reading.

Christopher and Family. Source: WFAA

Special thanks goes to the Richardson Fire Department, Medical City Dallas and WFAA.

Links:
WFAA News Story
YouTube
Richardson Fire Department Facebook