Yesterday, hubs and our 5 year old son went to Lowe's to look at weed eaters and when they left the store they heard a woman in the parking lot screaming, "He's gone! He's gone!" She was in the car next to them so hubs ran over to help her. There were already a couple of employees standing around her car calling 911. Her husband was in the drivers seat of the parked car unconscious. He wasn't breathing and hubs couldn't find a pulse so he said, "We need to lay him on the ground and start CPR." The employees were just looking on and one replied, "I'd do it, but my certificate just expired." Fortunately (I guess) hubs knew CPR and had been a volunteer and part time fighter fighter for a couple towns we've lived in and while his certification was also "expired" he didn't let that stop him from preforming CPR. The man would occasionally gasp for air even while he had no pulse they could find. Hubs thinks he was dead before anyone ever got to him and as awful as this sounds, he's had a lot of experience with the death of animals via hunting and butchering our own animals as well as his experiences as a fire fighter and had seen similar gasping behavior after they were clearly dead. None the less, he continued CPR, taking turns with a woman who volunteered to jump in after a few minutes in case hubs was tired. When the ambulance arrived, hubs and son went back into the store to wash up and give me a call to tell me what had just happened. When they went back out to the truck, the ambulance and fire fighters were still there and the man was on a gurney and it looked as if they had used the defibrillator on him but they didn't appear to be in a hurry to get him to the hospital. At some point, hubs talked to his wife and found out that he was 54 and had already had some open heart surgery and when hubs suggested that she call her family she said, "I can't, they're all mad at me." The women was heartbroken and kept crying to her husband, "Don't leave me." while hubs was previously doing CPR. So sad.
We don't know what happened or if he lived, it was quite an experience for hubs though. Life is short and fragile, don't waste it.
As for our son, he's fine. He sat in our truck next to them and could only see his daddy pulling the man out of the car. Hubs did talk with him about it on the way home and so did I and he seems fine. We've never sheltered our children from death with the exception of Hollywood's versions of it which only desensitize us so this wasn't his first experience, although it's never been quite so up close and graphic before. That makes it sound like if our son hasn't been desensitized by Hollywood than he should have a very strong reaction to what he witnessed, but again, that's Hollywood's interpretation of what our response should be. His attitude is what it is. For me, I'm saddened for the wife and family left behind and hate to think of him suffering alone in the car while his wife, unaware of what was happening, was doing a little shopping in the store. That's very sad. I do have the hope of Christ and we teach our children that as well. Hopefully this teaches our children that we MUST help care for everyone we possibly can, even strangers. We must cherish every life, particularly human life and recognize that God is the giver and taker of life. We also try to pass these lessons along to our children through our animals and the sacrifice they some of them have to make in order to feed us. Even though we're raising animals for food, we still must take great care of them while they're alive because all life is precious and if an animals life is precious, how much more is a humans life whether we personally get something from them or not?
My husband was "fine" while it was going on and a bit shook up afterwards when he called me, but overall, it's a valuable life experience that I'm sure he wouldn't erase for himself if he could.
I hope the man lived.
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