The military police knocked on our door last night, showed me a picture, and asked if I had seen this person in the last few hours. I recognized the person in the picture and joined in the search last night through the base and along Central Avenue for a suicidal friend who hours earlier had disappeared on foot with nothing but pajamas. Thankfully this person was found alive and is now getting help.
Pulling out of my neighborhood this morning on my way to work, the car up ahead was driving at idle speed and drifting between lanes. I pulled along side and clearly saw that the driver was unconscious and alone. I pulled ahead just in time to miss him as he veered into my lane and then crashed into a park bench. A small crowd formed, we felt a weak pulse, and got help. I don't know if this man is alive now.
How should we respond when brushed by death? It certainly has my attention today.
2 comments:
On my way to Colo Springs (in 2006) what I thought to be debris on I-25 turned out to be a man & a woman fallen (no helmets) from a Harley.
They were both unconscious. I was the 1st on the scene. I called 911 and a fellow motorist who stopped happened to be an EMT ; another was a nurse.
I knelt by & prayed.
For some reason the emergency med people let me stay until the med-evac copter flew them out; shading the woman's face with my sunshade. Maybe they figured I was praying.
The best I would suggest is what you do before-hand: take a Red Cross 1st aid & CPR course, keep a 1st aid kit in the car, blankets, signal flares, a cell phone & know where you are so you can give 911 a precise location. But praying is best.
Good advice and remarkable story.
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