Let me tell you a story. It was a clear, crisp Sunday afternoon and a young couple was headed back to Boston on Interstate 93 after a weekend of snowboarding in Vermont. About halfway home, they decided to stop at a rest area near Manchester, New Hampshire. The woman headed to the rest room and her husband offered to go into the state liquor store to pick out a bottle of wine for dinner.
The man entered the liquor store and began searching for just the right wine. Without warning, he collapsed. The people around him at the time tried to help him - one person began CPR, a clerk called 911. The manager of the store ran next door because he knew they had an AED, an Automatic Electronic Defibrillator. Hearing him ask for the device a woman there told him her husband was an EMT and she ran to get him.
By this time the woman had entered the store and noticed the commotion. It was only when she noticed her husband's cap on the floor that she realized they were working to revive him. The paramedic was familiar with the AED, but it took a couple of tries to restart the man's heart. A feeling of panic was beginning to take over in the woman.
The ambulance arrived and the two paramedics took over. They loaded him into the ambulance and rushed him to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. The woman rode in the front seat as they worked on her husband in the back. They dropped her off at the main entrance before they took her husband to the ambulance entrance. All they said was: "He's alive. He'll be in the ER."
Finding your way around a hospital is difficult on most occasions. When you are in a panic it's nearly impossible. The woman asked a passerby where the emergency room was and she pointed her in the right direction. That woman must have spoken to someone because the next person to approach the woman was a priest. In her panicked state her first thought was "He must be dead." Seeing the look in her eyes, the priest asked if he could help her find her way. Together they made their way to the emergency department.
Her husband, meanwhile, was being treated for both a heart attack and seizure because of the circumstances of his collapse. The current protocol is to sedate the patient, insert a breathing tube, catheterize, begin an IV, and cool the patient's body to 90 degrees for 24 hours to limit any damage to the brain and allow the body some time to remove the toxins that have built up. After being poked, prodded, and x-rayed they moved him to the ICU where they could monitor his condition.
While all this was happening, the woman was able to make some calls. She called his mother, she called her mother, her father, her best friends, a few of the couple's close friends. Her calls resulted in calls by her friends. Within minutes the word had spread and people began heading to the hospital to support her in her time of need.
Once he was moved to ICU she was able to see him again, but that didn't make her feel any better. He looked terrible - he was all tubes and monitor wires. Luckily the nurse assigned to his case was caring and patient and explained everything to her in a way that relieved her deepest fears. He was alive, but until they began to let him wake up they wouldn't know how much damage had been done to his brain. The nurse happened to be working a double shift and was also assigned to the patient in the adjoining room, but she took an active interest in this case and moved her portable computer into his room to spend more time there.
People began arriving at the hospital. His mother, her mother, his brother, her father, friends, and other relatives. His college room mate even flew in from San Francisco. It was an around-the-clock encampment and they made sure they relieved her of all logistical responsibilities so she could spend time with her husband.
It was going to be a very long 24 hours, but at the 22 hour mark he began to stir. The nurse tried to calm him and asked him to squeeze her hand. When he did so she asked him to squeeze his wife's had. When he did that the nurse knew he would be OK, but the specialists would still need to confirm it.
They left the hospital on Friday. He had a new defibrillator implanted in his chest because after all the testing the doctors could find no damage and nothing to treat. He would be able to snowboard again within a month. They would be able to get on with their lives as though nothing had happened.
But, things did happen. It was only as a result of random acts of kindness that this was the outcome. Without the CPR, the 911 call, the AED, and the paramedic who assisted before the ambulance arrived, the story might have had an entirely different ending. People came to the hospital and stayed for days. They all lent assistance because they saw a need. They didn't think about it, they acted and expected nothing in return.
I don't even know who those first responders were, but I am thankful that they decided to act. The woman is my daughter.