Friday evening, I left work and went home via the bus. A pretty uneventful trip home, as a matter of fact. I got home and realized that I felt really restless. I couldn’t shake the feeling. Finally, at about 7 o’clock, I took one of the really crappy beat up mountain bikes from the garage and went for a ride down the springwater corridor here in Portland.
I started at the 12 mile post, and turned around at the 20 (for those that can’t do math, that means I rode 8 miles there, and 8 miles back). Lets just say that my legs, for lack of a better term, felt like jello. Badly.
I was within, oh, 5 minutes of my house when it happened. Now, for the people that know me, you’re going to wonder how something like this could happen to me again. As I’ve said time and time again, I always seem to attract crazy and outlandish situations and I don’t know why.
Anyway, ahead of me was a gentleman that was walking along the trail. He was within spitting distance (literally) of the junction of the corridor and 136th ave. When I got about 50 feet behind him, and was just about to pass him, he collapsed flat on the ground. And by collapse, I don’t mean that he stumbled or tripped. He fell flat on his face as if his lights had just been knocked out.
Seeing this, I raced up as quickly as I could to him, jumped off the bike and checked his vitals. It has been 8 years since I was certified to perform CPR and first aid, but it’s amazing how quickly every thing comes back to you. I had reached his body within 10 seconds of his collapse, and knew that I only had a minute or two to get oxygen to his brain before he’d start losing cognotive ability.
I turned him on his back, checked his airway, felt that he still did have a pulse (thank god), but he wasn’t breathing. I tilted his head back and began mouth to mouth resuscitation on the poor guy. He was probably, at best, in his late fifties. Far too young to die, as far as I was concerned.
Cars stopped out on the road, and other bikers had stopped to help. I was breathing for about a minute (trying to time it as best as I could), and periodically checking to make sure that his heart was still beating, otherwise I would have had to start compressions.
In all the confusion, I had neglected to ask someone to call 911, but someone did either way (which I’m thankful for), and they arrived in a few minutes. I had been sharing the mouth to mouth responsibilities with another bike who stated he was trained for it.
I don’t think that we went for too long; I think that I went for about 5 minutes, and then another 5 minutes with the other biker before the ambulance pulled up. At that point, I simply got out of the way, told the ambulance drivers everything that I’d done (opened his clothing, checked his airway, pulse, eye dilation, etc.), and stood back.
I thanked them for coming so quickly and made a discrete exit. To be honest, I was remembering what my CPR teacher had told me 8 years ago: “Only 2% of the people who receive CPR will survive to the hospital.”, and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know if he was going to make it or not.
Of course, now I can’t help but think about him and wonder if he made it. I hope he did.