I saved a life.
I feel like no matter how I write this out it's going to sound like I'm bragging. I assure you though that is not my intent. This is actually something I am trying to cope with it. That sounds strange I suppose. Saying you saved someone's life sounds heroic but I don't feel like a hero. I feel like a young woman who did something that seemed like the right thing to do and now people show up with praise, invites to events, flowers, and... I just don't understand still.
No don't leave to search the news feeds. As far as I know the news didn't get out to any networks and I have no interest in gaining extra fame.
I work for a major retail company. I work setting up displays for them so when someone comes in considering buying something they have a working model to fiddle with. On the week of November 4th I started working nights to help remodel three stores for the upcoming Holiday Season. One the 3rd night working in my second store something happened... I later found out this gentlemen had a heart attack but all I caught from three isles over was that there was a small group of employees gathering in an area. Like any curious employee I went to see what was going on, though all I caught at that moment was that someone was on the ground and another man didn't look happy.
A flurry of communication later I caught up that someone was on the ground due to some sort of accident (I recall thinking he had hit his head on the metal shelf) and I asked one little question "Is he breathing?"
Another flurry this time of motions as opposed to words. The important part being "No." and "Does anyone know CPR?"
No one responded. I vaguely recalled taking a class on CPR back in high school some 4 to 8 years ago depending. "I... kind of do." I stepped forward. I remembered an article saying that now days they suggested compressions and not breaths at all. I went with it. I started doing chest compressions while someone called 9-1-1. I remembered I should see if he could get air in and tilted his head back not seeing anything I knew to be a blockage.
I started counting my compressions into the speaker phone of a stranger's cell as the individual on the line (I really don't recall if it was a male or female, I suppose I was more caught up in the moment than I knew) couched me. I yelled over everyone into the speaker each time he took a breath, odd gapes at strange intervals, and continued with compressions.
We heard the ambulance. I told the person on the phone we could hear them and kept counting. An EMS individual came and took over. I moved quickly, stood up, watched a moment, and started quaking. I noticed blood on my hands and told EMS I thought he was bleeding from the back of his head (I found out later he had hit the metal shelf on his way down and was in fact bleeding from the back of his head). I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. I was still shaking.
They were taking him into the ambulance by the time I was smoking my second cigarette. I called home and spoke with my boyfriend to calm me down.
Four cigarettes, 3 glasses of water, and two phone calls home later I was working like nothing had happened.
People kept walking up to congratulate me. Three weeks later people are still congratulating me. EMS came to my work to invite me to a cookout of some sort for survivors and heroes.
Yesterday that gentlemen and his wife showed up at my job hugged me, thanked me, and gave me a plant.
People think of me as a hero and I can not.
I'm a young woman that took the only action I saw possible.
I made mistakes, but that man is alive though because of me (or so says the doctors, EMS, him, his family, my job, and my boyfriend).
Yet I still find it difficult to accept that without me this man may not be here today.
I'm a hero in everyone's eyes except my own.
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