Sunday, July 31, 2011

Strange Birthday

----Warning, Sad Story------

My Birthday started with breakfast at Chuck Wagon and spending time with "La Familia". After they drop off Kay at the airport I go to meet Sandra and the perritas a the West Kendall dog park but I got there an hour early and decide to waste it at the local target. As I'm making a left turn into the parking lot I begin to hear continuous honking and it's following me so i pull over once I'm inside the parking lot. I'm trying to figure out whats going on, imagining that maybe I cut this lady off and she wants to tell me off which I'll just let her and be done with it. But she gets out and starts screaming about an emergency and to call 911.
I get out and go over to the passenger side where her husband is sitting unconscious. He wasn't slumped over with eyes close as if asleep but with his head back, eyes half closed without signs of breathing. At the same time I'm on the phone with 911 because the wife was calling family members. I started arguing with the 911 dispatcher about the address of the Target, when the store managers come, give me the address and i go back to the husband.
The dispatcher asks me if he is breathing and i tell her i cant tell so i go to check his pulse at the neck when he inhales suddenly. I feel bad having thought this but i noticed buggers and spittle on the man's face and was dreading if I was told to perform mouth to mouth. I decide to check his pulse on his wrist but i don't feel it although he's still taking sporadic breaths every 5 seconds.
The Fire rescue and police arrive and begin to work on him from within the car. They intubate him but at the same time they are doing chest compressions and i wonder if it's possible to still take a breath even if your heart is not pumping blood. A lady comes out of nowhere praising Jesus and God and walks up to the wife and hugs her. I couldn't tell if they knew each other but i was glad she was there comforting her because the situation didn't look good.She told me he was 66, no surgeries or recent problems, just had a check up and came out fine.
I had calculated he had been almost 5 minutes without blood circulating. The fact that the paramedics were still working on him, giving him ephinephrin and antrpoin but hadn't shocked him gave me hope that he just needed a little extra help breathing and blood circulating.
They eventually loaded him into the ambulance with the wife in the front and took him to Baptist. The Target managers were writing down all the information they needed and the store's security was directing traffic and shoppers efficiently. I wasn't needed anymore, my role as witness had ended and i could continue with my life. I went to the park and spent it playing with breeze and foxy, had chicken wings for dinner and watched T.V.
That was my 35 birthday. Thanks God, for making it weird.

1 comment:

VR said...

Update: I looked up the uses of antropine and ephinephrine and they are both used in cardiac arrest or Bradycardia.