- Nov 16, 2000
- 15,168
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I know I don't come here much anymore, as I've been so busy with work and family that my free time is taken up almost entirely with trying to catch up on sleep. However, I went through the single most traumatizing/terrifying experience in my life recently and thought I'd share the story and message with AT...It's a bit long but hopefully not a waste of time.
I was at work when a close friend of mine gave me a call to meet for lunch. I agreed and met him outside my workplace... We were going to walk across the parking lot to a restaurant nearby, but he insisted on driving and immediately went back into his car after briefly greeting me.
I found his insistence on driving a little strange, but it was a cold and wet so I shrugged it off. We get in the car and start driving, and as he approaches the restaurant entrance, he continues straight on into a parking lot of a Toys R Us instead of making the hard turn into the restaurant. His head began nodding forward and he began to mumble as we coasted further back alongside the building, before he finally grabbed the wheel and half-assed pulled off to the side, nearly behind the building. He was acting very weird and almost drunk, so I started shooting out questions "Are you OK?" "Are you on something?" "What's wrong with you, you're freaking me out...?" etc. etc...but he just croaked out "I don't know if I'm...oh god...." and something else unintelligible.
I still had no idea what the hell was going on when he stopped moving and talking. I reached over to shake him to see if he was joking around, and to check his pulse if not, and he didn't move, but had a POUNDING pulse. I jumped out of the car and ran over to his side, opened the door and tried to move him. His neck and back were starting to arch and his muscles were HARD flexed, making it almost impossible to move him into a position to get him out of the car. As I tried to yank his feet out of the car, I saw a used, uncapped syringe on the floor almost under the seat. I put it on the dashboard.
When I finally got him out of the car, he didn't seem to be breathing, his pulse was weakening and his muscles relaxing. I put him on the pavement (freezing cold and wet, with it still drizzling and windy) and started CPR (mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions). Somewhere after this I got 911 on the line and got an ambulance on the way. He was already turning blue, was not breathing at all on his own, and his pulse was almost gone. I kept up the CPR and by the time the ambulance got there, he had been out for over 10 minutes.
They got him into the truck and injected Narcan (naxalone) over and over (a total of four doses) before finally reversing the condition and managed to get him conscious. He went to the hospital, was treated and released later that night...apparently the CPR kept enough oxygen going to his brain to keep him from going braindead, and kept his heart from quitting completely.
Apparently he was using heroin and had been clean for several months before using "one more time" just before I walked outside to meet with him. Of course the police immediately suspected me of having a part in it and getting through that was less than fun, but he is alive and recovering now, so that's the most important thing.
Sorry for the rant, just wanted to get it off my chest and also send home the importance of being trained for CPR. You NEVER know when someone might need help (not a single person walking around near us stopped to help) and not many people have the knowledge it takes to keep someone alive long enough for the paramedics to get there. Imagine how you would feel if you had to stand by watching someone die, knowing that had you spent a little time learning CPR, you could've helped them survive.
Stay safe folks and don't do drugs.
Mini-update:
As a bit of an update, I've talked to him since the accident and he is recovering well. Apparently he had not been using constantly as of recent, and after this incident he has not used either (nor been on any sort of medical treatment), though has gone to a psychiatrist. He's been spending most of his time sleeping at home, as could be expected.
If anything more of interest comes up, I'll let you all know.
I was at work when a close friend of mine gave me a call to meet for lunch. I agreed and met him outside my workplace... We were going to walk across the parking lot to a restaurant nearby, but he insisted on driving and immediately went back into his car after briefly greeting me.
I found his insistence on driving a little strange, but it was a cold and wet so I shrugged it off. We get in the car and start driving, and as he approaches the restaurant entrance, he continues straight on into a parking lot of a Toys R Us instead of making the hard turn into the restaurant. His head began nodding forward and he began to mumble as we coasted further back alongside the building, before he finally grabbed the wheel and half-assed pulled off to the side, nearly behind the building. He was acting very weird and almost drunk, so I started shooting out questions "Are you OK?" "Are you on something?" "What's wrong with you, you're freaking me out...?" etc. etc...but he just croaked out "I don't know if I'm...oh god...." and something else unintelligible.
I still had no idea what the hell was going on when he stopped moving and talking. I reached over to shake him to see if he was joking around, and to check his pulse if not, and he didn't move, but had a POUNDING pulse. I jumped out of the car and ran over to his side, opened the door and tried to move him. His neck and back were starting to arch and his muscles were HARD flexed, making it almost impossible to move him into a position to get him out of the car. As I tried to yank his feet out of the car, I saw a used, uncapped syringe on the floor almost under the seat. I put it on the dashboard.
When I finally got him out of the car, he didn't seem to be breathing, his pulse was weakening and his muscles relaxing. I put him on the pavement (freezing cold and wet, with it still drizzling and windy) and started CPR (mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions). Somewhere after this I got 911 on the line and got an ambulance on the way. He was already turning blue, was not breathing at all on his own, and his pulse was almost gone. I kept up the CPR and by the time the ambulance got there, he had been out for over 10 minutes.
They got him into the truck and injected Narcan (naxalone) over and over (a total of four doses) before finally reversing the condition and managed to get him conscious. He went to the hospital, was treated and released later that night...apparently the CPR kept enough oxygen going to his brain to keep him from going braindead, and kept his heart from quitting completely.
Apparently he was using heroin and had been clean for several months before using "one more time" just before I walked outside to meet with him. Of course the police immediately suspected me of having a part in it and getting through that was less than fun, but he is alive and recovering now, so that's the most important thing.
Sorry for the rant, just wanted to get it off my chest and also send home the importance of being trained for CPR. You NEVER know when someone might need help (not a single person walking around near us stopped to help) and not many people have the knowledge it takes to keep someone alive long enough for the paramedics to get there. Imagine how you would feel if you had to stand by watching someone die, knowing that had you spent a little time learning CPR, you could've helped them survive.
Stay safe folks and don't do drugs.
Mini-update:
As a bit of an update, I've talked to him since the accident and he is recovering well. Apparently he had not been using constantly as of recent, and after this incident he has not used either (nor been on any sort of medical treatment), though has gone to a psychiatrist. He's been spending most of his time sleeping at home, as could be expected.
If anything more of interest comes up, I'll let you all know.
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