43-82

I woke up on Wednesday morning thinking it was a very weird day.  The first thing that happened was that I was being bitten by a mosquito all night while I was sleeping so I went to go sleep in my brother's room instead because he's away in college.  I remember putting Calydryl on my bites and thanking goodness that I was not bitten on the lip.  Those suck!  When I woke up, there was a mosquito bite on my lip.  How strange and extremely irritating.  I felt like an ugly version of Angelina Jolie.

When I went to go get the car out of the garage, I was expecting it to be on the right side so I didn't need to move other cars around.  The car that I drive is rarely on the left side but sure enough, when I opened the garage door, it was on the left side.  I lost 15 minutes backing out the car in the backyard to get to the car on the left. 

The day went on and I was trading emails with my friend from work who was telling me what a bad day it's been so far.  We shared stories but everything seemed fine.  We talked about what a strange day it has been so far.  I was in a training class at work and different instructors were coming in to teach different aspects of project management.  After lunch, a new instructor came in to talk about schedules and a specific company program.  We all knew him in some capacity since he'd been working in the company for 38 years. 

When he started speaking, he seemed very nervous and his voice shook a little.  He seemed to calm down and he got through about 6 slides when his voice really shook.  I looked up to see him take a step back and put his hand behind him to support himself on the table and say excuse me.  At that exact moment, he fell forward and a student and another instructor nearest to him caught him and laid him down on the floor.  There were 30 people in the class and each sprung into action.  Some people called 911, some called the facility medical team, some ran out to get defibrilators and CPR kits, some went out to the first floor to guide the EMT and fire fighters to the room.  Me, I moved the chair back as the two men laid him down.  I was about 5 feet away from the instructor's head.  The person next to me was calling 911 and asked me what the address of the building was.  No one in the room knew.  The other person calling 911 from the room phone was calling out for the address.  I don't know how but I had the mindset to log into the computer behind me and go directly to the building's website and get the address.  It was one of those autopilot modes where your fingers just move and your mouth tells everyone 43-82 Vernon Boulevard but your mind doesn't really know what it's doing.  I watched as the instructor's face went from red to dark red to purple.  I couldn't do anything but watch as the building's medics were working on him.  This all took place in about 2 minutes.  The class was kicked out of the room and we watched the fire fighters and EMT go into the room another few minutes later.  They were still working on chest compressions as they wheeled him away.  All told, it must have only been 5 minutes but it seemed like hours.  The class was disbanded and I went back to my office because I had class later on that night in Manhattan.  When I got home, all I wanted to do was go to bed and let this day end.

We did not know it then but he was pronounced dead at the hospital soon after he arrived.  I found out the next morning.  The company got a counselor to come in to talk to the class but what could we say?  I'm not sure what was the cause of death but most believe that it was his heart.  There is no solace in watching someone die even if there was nothing that we could do and that we did everything that we could do.  It seemed like there nothing a difibrillator could do.  The family sent the instructor's manager an email thanking everyone in the class for their efforts in trying to save their father.  People at the office asked me how I was doing.  I'm not really sure.

The thing that I walked away with was knowing the address of the place your at at all times.  In this case, it may not have mattered but in the future it may.  I started looking around for CPR kits in my office area and have located them.  I realized that autopilot mode can be utilized for good things when you have your mind trained to respond such as calling 911 and going straight to the CPR kit/difibrillator because you already know where they are.  They say, time is of the essence.  What a strange day Wednesday was.  RIP.