http://sejje.net/ Life and Times en-us Nucleus CMS v3.22 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://sejje.net//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://sejje.net/ http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=1
There's a few true stories below that I wrote, which are available to read.

Photoblog - I decided to start a photoblog in March. It's my goal to post a photo a day, but also not to post junk. Motivation to shoot.]]> General http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=1 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:31:00 -0600 http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=29
Summer camp in the sports department was about to undergo a radical change. Coach Bob, the new director, had an idea for camp that was a huge change from any previous camp. Basically, that the kids would be on one team for each week of camp--led by one or more coaches--and the teams would compete in athletic events. The week would end with a victorious team. Motivation? Winning team gets Papa John's pizza for lunch on Friday. And no more little kids: this camp was strictly eight years and up.

The other coaches and I met on Sunday afternoon before the first day of camp. We pulled out the enrollment roster and had a draft. I was lucky enough to know some kids ahead of time, but it didn't really afford me much advantage. Besides, I wasn't going for brawn: I wanted a team I would enjoy, and one that had a little brains. I only had one pick cemented before I came into the office, and it was a little eight-year-old girl named Lynsey. She was the aquatic director's daughter, and easily my most favorite kid in the whole world.

Camp began Monday morning better than anyone could have hoped. Coach Bob was amazing--within two hours, every single kid in camp was playing like it was for a Superbowl Ring. And every coach, too. Coaches were allowed to play--in games where the rounds were short (30 seconds to 2 minutes, say), we would have a couple of coaches-only rounds, which were a lot of fun, and every bit as intense as you could imagine some kickball or four-handed floor hockey being. In large-team games like capture the flag, dodgeball, or soccer, we played alongside our kids. It was not a rule, but generally practiced that coaches would do the "dirty work"--guarding the flag, playing defense, etc. In every event, the winning team would receive five points. Sometimes it was two teams versus the other two teams, so there was also some inter-team camaraderie now and then.

Each team selected a name for the week. I'm from Indiana, and so my team was coerced into being the Hoosiers.It has been said that I was intense, and I won't deny it. My motivation for intensity was multi-fold: one, I like to lead by example. My kids saw that I was trying my best at everything I did, and therefore I never had to ask my kids to play hard. They also saw that I tried hard at every position I played, and I was able to make a difference from each one. Second--yeah, I'll say it--I'm a competitor. Even in this tiny realm of fifty kids and eight coaches, I wanted to win. Badly. I don't believe in playing just for fun. I believe that fun comes with winning. Teaching kids to play for fun isn't doing them any favors: teaching them to have fun while giving their all in the pursuit of winning is breeding success--not just in sports, but for their entire life.

There was another way to get points; by being a good person. There were tons of ways to get these points, most of which nobody had any idea. If Coach Bob caught you doing something outstanding, you got two points for your team. Kids helping up other kids who fell, cheering wildly for your teammates, making extra sure to clean up their trash at lunch, helping carry equipment, or maybe sharing lunch with someone who forgot theirs, getting hurt without complaining: all would receive points. Things that were outstanding a few times often became routine: after one kid got points for holding the door for everybody, you couldn't find a cubic inch of empty space on any door that didn't have a sweaty hand plastered to it. Those things soon began to stop being rewarded, but interestingly, I never had to open my own door the entire summer--long after every kid knew that they wouldn't receive anything.

The rest of the Hoosiers filled out in much the same way as my first pick: my oldest kid was ten, and I easily had the smallest, scrawniest bunch of kids of the four teams--the Terps, the Gators, and the Blue Devils. Not to mention most teams outnumbered mine by five or more--apparently I had some no-shows, and as our enrollment increased through the week, I didn't seem to get my fair share. I didn't mind, though. I like a challenge.

In truth, the Hoosiers held their own in most of our athletic matches. I etched into my kids' brains that we weren't going to win by being faster or stronger or better than the other teams: we were going to win by being smarter. We would always make the right decision in everything we did. We would select an optimal batting order for kickball. A bunting strategy for smash-ball. The right kids in the right places on defense. Pairing up the right partners in scooter races. Sometimes kids would have to sacrifice the more "fun" part of a game to fulfill a role that made more sense, or to allow a better player to play a certain position, but I never had a complaint. Because we were winning. From the very get-go we were winning, and although we didn't win all of our matches, my kids were by far and away the smartest, most well-organized and well-disciplined team. And smart kids get more "good Samaritan" points.

I've always had an easy time with kids. I don't allow misbehavior. That's not to say I'm a screaming, yelling, Nazi-esque loon. On the contrary, I almost never have to raise my voice. It sounds too simple to be true, but if you keep kids busy, and adamantly disallow misbehavior, kids just behave.

But these Hoosiers--I've never had a better-behaved group of kids. It wasn't even just obeying rules--they were going out of their way to be good people. My kids were picking up other teams' trash at lunch, without being prompted. My kids were lugging heavy equipment, far larger than they were, out to the fields. My kids were asking if there was anything they could help Coach Bob with. My kids were in line before I could ask them.

More than being smart, my kids were motivated. Every kid had the desire to win just as strongly as I myself had it. They would scream wildly for their teammates. During down-times while we set up a new game, my team would be chanting: "Hoosiers! Hoosiers!" My kids were like a high-school football team: nobody's there for the money, everybody's there for the glory. They were loving every minute of camp, and they couldn't help but get extra points.

One of my proudest moments came on Tuesday or Wednesday at lunch time. I asked that my team sat together each day at lunch, and on that day I was the guy who had to make the lunch run to pick up some fast food for all of the staff. I told my kids I would be back shortly, and to behave themselves, be smart, and make me proud. That was all it took: when I came back, my team had apparently been geniuses: we had ten more points than when I left.

Scooter races were my team's specialty: for scooter races, the equipment is a plastic square, probably 14" on each side, with caster wheels. We invented many types of races, but they usually involved one scooter, either being propelled by the person on it (maybe on their belly, or sitting and pushing with their legs), or with a pair of kids, one sitting and one pushing or pulling. Each kid or pair would take their turn in a relay, so every kid had to figure out the best way to run the race--what worked well for one kid might be terrible for another. The key to most scooter races seemed to elude the other coaches for the better part of the summer, but it was really simple: make sure the kid who sits on the scooter is a kid who won't fall off. That was always easier for my team because we tried to be smarter, but also because we were smaller--thirteen year-olds have trouble keeping their feet on the tiny scooter. One of my kids, named Chris, was undeniably the best scooter racer in camp. Usually he and I would be partners, because I could literally run top speed and whip him around sharp corners, or do a 180 degree turn on a dime, and neither one of his cheeks would part company even one millimeter from the top of the scooter. Super-glue wouldn't have made him any better. Scooter races were worth five points apiece for first place, and that first week I bet we won seven out of ten. We were virtually unstoppable.

I was extremely pleased with my team the entire week. I would not be happy with kids who played hard at one sport, and not at another. I would not be happy with whiners. I would not be happy with kids who didn't mind losing. None of my kids, not a single one, was a kid like that. Maybe they drew that attitude from me, or from each other--I'm not sure. But my team played their little guts out on every play of every game and relay race and contest we had. They did everything in their power to win, and I wouldn't have taken the American Gladiators crew over those eight kids that week.

We led most--if not all--of the week, and on Friday everything was looking good. About 10AM, Coach Bob announced that we would soon be holding the last event: a tug-of-war match. It wasn't good news for us: my eight little kids and I didn't have much of a chance against any of the other teams. One team had fifteen kids present that day, and it's about impossible to out-pull against those kinds of odds. But we weren't worried: We had a pretty big lead, twelve points over second place. We were a lock.

Until Coach Bob continued: "We're going to play a tournament."

Well, depending on the tournament, a team could win enough matches to come out three games ahead of us for a fifteen point gain, but it was so unlikely. I was confident.

"Since this is the last event, each match will be worth FIFTEEN points." WHAT!? Did I just hear that? At least Coach Bob knew how to make things exciting. It was really devastating for tug-of-war to be worth fifteen points per match--there was little "smarts" or skill involved, and my team had so few kids. We had no edge to exploit. But I couldn't let my kids see it. I would not concede defeat: someone was going to have to do a whole lot of pulling, because there was no way the Hoosiers were about to lie down and roll over. I was going to out-pull ten kids, I could feel it.

As luck would have it--and it wasn't quite going our way at this point--our first match-up was the second place team--the Gators. And, as luck would have it, they were the team with fifteen kids. And did I mention two coaches? We didn't care: we weren't giving them anything free.

It was our first tug-of-war event, so none of us really knew what to expect, but I prepared my team. I know enough about tug-of-war to know that traction on the ground is important. I grabbed the dust mop and cleaned up the area we were going to be pulling in. The other coaches probably noticed, but didn't realize how important it was. I had my kids wipe off the bottoms of their shoes with their hands, to get the loose sand off. Then I spaced my kids out on each side of the rope, all of them with enough room so that they wouldn't entangle their feet. I, of course, was going to be in the very back--the traditional spot for the largest team-member. And then I told them the most important rule of tug-of-war: if you fall down, let go of the rope and stand back up. They nodded and we took our positions.

The rope we had was borrowed from a local firehouse. The gym was approximately one-hundred feet across, and I would guess the rope was about two-hundred and fifty feet long. Our rules were that you had to pull the front player of the other team across half-court. That meant if a team let the rope slide through their hands, there was going to be a lot of rope pulled before the end of the match. At least seventy-five feet worth.

Seventy-five feet or not, the match didn't take long. As well as we had prepared, we really stood no chance, our nine against their seventeen. I think I probably out-pulled the other two coaches, because my feet were so snug on the clean rubber floor that I didn't slide, they had to pull me over. But eight kids against fifteen isn't a match. It's a massacre. We were out of the tournament. The Gators had now secured enough points for second, and we had lost. Our entire week had gone down the drain on one lopsided tug-of-war match. I was disgusted.

I took my kids to the side of the court to sit while the Terps and the Blue Devils had it out. It was really a moot point: anyone who won couldn't come in first, they were too far behind. If one of them won both of their matches, they would finish second ahead of us for the week.

My kids were totally dejected. All of our arms ached, our hands were sore and red. They didn't understand the points yet, but one of them asked: "Are we still winning?"

"No. We've lost." It hurt me just to say it. The kids' shoulders slumped. Nobody said anything. Nobody complained about uneven teams, or huge points being awarded for a mostly thoughtless competition. But they were dejected. A couple of the kids, including Lynsey, began to cry. I tried to hold it together, but the tears were welling in my eyes also. I wanted so badly for them to win. My team. They deserved every bit of that glory. They wore themselves ragged, exploiting every little edge they could find. And now they had lost all of that hard work in a freakin' tug-of-war match--one they never had a chance in.

Coach Bob was getting ready to start the next match, and came walking by. He saw the looks on my kids faces--the tears. He wondered aloud: "What's wrong with you guys? Did you give up or something?"

Lynsey replied to Bob: "What? We lost."

"Aren't you going to pull in your second match? You could still win!"

Oh God, I loved Coach Bob. We got to pull for third place in the tournament! Another chance at fifteen points! I scoped out the teams while they were pulling--the Blue Devils vs the Terps. It was another pretty lopsided match, probably the Blue Devils' sixteen versus twelve Terps (and two coaches). The twelve were all bigger than my kids, but a lot of them weren't athletes. They didn't sweep the floor or clean off the bottom of their shoes. They clogged their feet together. Shoddy coaching. The Blue Devils handily defeated the Terps and moved on to the finals.

The winners played each other next. We had a few reasons to pull for the Blue Devils in this second round. First, Coach Biggie, the team leader, was my best friend. And second, if they didn't win, we couldn't win the week. The other team would have too many points. Biggie's team was up to it, though, and after a pretty long match, they finally pulled a kid over the half-court line.

Our moment of redemption had come. We were on the other side of the gym this time, and I grabbed the dust mop again. We took all our preparations, and we got ready to begin. My adrenaline was surging; my heart was beating fast. I couldn't let my kids down again. I felt like I could out-pull the entire team single-handedly. I felt like Superman. No drug can make you feel that way.

I knew we were going to win. I didn't care if they had two coaches. My kids felt it too, and it's a good thing. We were in for quite a match.

The Terps couldn't win the week, but they could sure as hell win third place in the tug-of-war tournament. They had a lot of team pride too, and they weren't lying down. The match started off a total dead-heat. Nobody moved an inch. Our feet gripped the ground better, but they had enough traction--probably from me sweeping the floor earlier--and a few extra kids, and held us steadily. After maybe twenty seconds we gave a foot or two. I wasn't going to have that.

I had swept the floor well enough that it was like I was glued down. My shoes gripped the rubber floor like a vise. My feet would not slide, so I turned around, facing backwards, and leaned down as far as I could towards the wall. My head came close to the ground, and I pulled with all my might. Slowly, inch by inch, we were able to make our way towards the wall. Kids from the other teams were watching. The Gators were down on the other side of the gym cheering on the Terps. (Biggie's team) was cheering on my team. We kept moving slowly, and finally we reached the wall. On that side of the gym, there was an office, and the door was open. The floor inside was carpet, and dirty. I didn't want to be on carpet, but I figured it was better than having my kids re-grip on the rope while we pulled it through our hands, because we had about seventy-five feet worth of rope to pull through. I kept going, right into the office, and eventually, seven little kids followed me. That was all the room we had, and little Lynsey, who was in the point position, was left outside. Now we had to re-grip--but the other team was losing its steam. The rope wasn't coming easily, but slowly and steadily we were able to inch it by. A pile of rope began to accumulate at my feet. I was shouting encouragement to my kids. Outside the office window, I could see my best friend. He's six-foot-eight, and he was standing there, screaming his guts out, shouting encouragement right in Lynsey's little ears.

Out the office door, over the eight little heads, I could see across the gym that the point kid on the other team was nearing the half-court line. Behind their two coaches I couldn't see much rope. They had--for all intents and purposes--reached the end of their rope. I knew we were close.

I shouted to my kids "On the count of three, everybody pull!"--thinking we could pull that kid across in one fell swoop. On three, everybody pulled, and we gained about two feet of rope--but the kid had not budged.

"One more time!" I shouted, and they responded again. And the kid did not budge.

"One more time!" Still, he did not budge.

I'm not sure how many times I shouted "one more time!", but it more than a few. The last time, I shouted it and apparently the other team was out of rope. The point kid on the other team came across the line--not by inches, but by several feet. The Terps let go of the rope simultaneously, and my entire team and myself all fell backwards onto the office floor, a big sweaty, mess, chests heaving for breath. And grinning. We had done it. We had sealed our victory for the week, in a grueling six-minute match.

We picked ourselves up and came out of the office into the gym, and (Biggie's team) was all screaming for us. The Hoosiers gathered around me, and I had never, and have never since, been so proud to be a part of any group. Their hands, and mine, were raw. Some of ours were bleeding. Mine were. Lynsey's were. Our arms were noodles. I rubbed a couple of heads, and gave a few high-fives, and soon we went off to lunch. I never could have imagined working so hard for two cheese pizzas.

I never told them so, but I have never had so much respect for anyone than I had for eight Hooisers that week. They displayed so many things, things that I wish I could be. They were disciplined, courageous. Smart. Kind and good-natured. Competitive. Proud. Each kid on my team that week, from my ten year old down to little Lynsey, had displayed all of the traits that I admire, respect, and strive for. They were little heroes. They were winners.

Coach Bob's camp was a grand slam. Our enrollment went from thirty-two to start the first week to well over one-hundred and thirty-two to close the summer. I went on to win seven out of nine weeks that summer--and Biggie won the rest--with a different team each week, although I chose as many of the same kids as I could. None of the other victories could hold a candle to the first one. I'm so proud to have been a Hoosier.]]> General http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=29 Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:22:19 -0600 http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=25
We had spent the previous night in our tent, and on this day we were enjoying the water. We had rented two tubes to float down the river. You walk through the park to the spring, where you climb into the icy cold water and then the spring feeds into the river and you can float down for thirty minutes or so and get out in the last spring on the property. The distance is not that far, but the river current is slow and so it takes a while.

Alicia and I were climbing into the cold spring water for our second float down the river. We both jumped on the top of our tubes so as not to be submerged in the (icy) water, and only my butt was wet. We used our hands to do little scoops and propel ourselves down the spring towards the river.

Approaching us, walking up the spring, were two girls, probably 24 or 25, Indian girls. There was some kind of reunion or get-together for them (Indians), and we had seen many groups. These girls were calling to someone…they were looking over our heads towards the bank and shouting. Neither of us could understand them; Alicia asked me what they were saying. It sounded like they were not speaking English. We floated closer and closer to them, and I thought I made out the word “help” at the end of one shout. When we got very close, they asked us:

“Do you know swimming?”

“Yes,” we both replied.

“Someone needs help.” One girl gestured towards the river.We began paddling more quickly--the distance to the river was not far--and had gone a few yards when someone from the bank called out to us not to worry, a man had been pulled from the water, but was on the bank now. I felt relieved. We kept paddling and went around the corner and, sure enough, there was a man sitting on the bank being consoled. A bystander was rubbing his back and he was shaking to some degree.

I looked at Alicia, and she nodded her head in the direction of the man on the bank, as if I should do something about it. I’m a certified lifeguard and also trained as a first responder in CPR. Probably my First Aid certification has run out by now, and I’m not sure about the other two things. Regardless, the man on the bank was clearly conscious and healthy, and to me just looked shaken up. Maybe he was in “shock,” although I’m not sure of the symptoms anymore and I would have no idea how to treat it for the few minutes until the paramedics arrived, assuming someone had called 911. “First responder” CPR is basically the same as community CPR, but we learn how to administer oxygen and how to use an AED. The motions of CPR are the same regardless.

“He’s okay,” I said. “He’s breathing and everything. I just know CPR, I can’t really do anything for him.”

She nodded. We were still floating there just at the mouth where the spring enters the river. Some people a little upstream were shouting, two young men. One was standing on a tree that overhangs the river. People had been jumping from there into the water all day. He was hanging onto a branch and leaning out over the tree. The other man was overweight, and standing about waist deep in the water.

“Goggles! Get us some Goddamn goggles!” They shouted this several times in the direction of the bank, and the man on the tree was peering into the water.

“We can’t see shit!” It was true. The water all around the bank here was clouded up, a dark red, maroon color. It looked like the bottom was some deep-colored clay. It covered an area about the size of a large living room, from the tree to the mouth of the stream, and extended into the current about thirty feet, until the water was maybe twelve feet deep. The bottom had been stirred up somehow, and totally obscured everything in the water.

It was clear that these men were looking for something, and by the panic in their voices, I assumed it was a person. But the man was fine; he was sitting right there on the bank. Something didn’t add up, and I took the plunge into the cold water. The river water from upstream is warm, and it blends the spring water into a more acceptable temperature. I pushed my tube toward Alicia.

There was an Indian woman standing in the water about to her waist. Someone was standing behind her, almost supporting her. She was crying visibly, but not loudly. She was standing still.

I swam to the fat man, and he stared blankly at me; he was obviously drunk. Most of the park visitors were.

“Is there someone in the water?”

He kept staring blankly at me, and then looked to the bank and shouted again for goggles.

I repeated myself. “Is there someone else in the water!?”

“Yes,” came the reply.

So the nightmare began. From the time we came around the corner there had been no drowning people visible. Nobody was in the water in that area except myself, Alicia, the overweight man, and at some point while I was talking to the overweight man, a man in a wet-suit arrived.

He was certainly one of the scuba divers there to explore the caves. He was a bald man with a large nose, and probably forty-five years old.

I began to wade around in the dark water, arms outstretched and feeling with my feet. The bottom was mushy; soft sand mixed with leaves and other rotting plant material. Once my heart skipped a beat when I stepped on something that wasn’t mushy, but it was a tree trunk. I remember how I felt looking for the body, and it was like I didn’t really think I would find it. Logically I knew there was someone in the water somewhere, but I didn’t believe in my heart that we would find him.

Some goggles arrived. Someone from the bank tossed them to the fat man. He relayed them to me, as if he never wanted them in the first place. I relayed them to the scuba diver. I was in the clouded water; they wouldn’t extend my visibility more than a few inches, and anyway I was in the shallows. The man in the wet-suit was working the edge of the murk. He didn’t have any equipment except his wet-suit and now goggles.

I heard someone ask “Where? Where did he go under?” I looked up, and they were asking the Indian woman. She let out a wail and slowly raised her arm. It was shaking, and she pointed in the direction of the tree. I had been working the area closer to the mouth of the spring, downstream from the tree, and so I moved to where she pointed. So did the fat man, but he seemed to me to just stand there.

Quickly we prodded the area near where she had pointed, and it was obvious the man was not there. I moved back to where I was and began working the deeper water--I had worked all of the shallows. I could not see into the water, so I began to “pencil dive,” feet first straight down. I would feel around with my feet in a large circle, and then surface for a breath and move to a new spot.

I must have done ten or twelve pencil dives when the diver threw me the goggles. I was near the fringe of the murky water now, downstream from where he had been looking, which was near the tree. I began to put them on, and I saw some people watching us, floating by in their tubes out in the current. They were sipping on their beer. Apparently Bud Light was the choice of the weekend.

I almost had the face mask on when a boy , probably nineteen or twenty, surfaced even further downstream from where I was, at the very end of the murky water, and very near where the spring fed into the river. He had on a face mask and snorkel, and I had not seen him to that point.

“Here!” He shouted. He looked directly at me, probably because I was nearest to him. Quickly I made my way a few more feet while I put on the mask, and then I dove at an angle towards the bottom under where the boy was. He also began swimming down.

I got out of the murky red water and the water became green. It was full of some kind of floating algae or something; it was like pea soup. I could see probably five feet ahead, and I couldn’t see the bottom, which was probably 12-16 feet. The green algae was swirling around my face mask. I kept swimming and swimming, waiting to see the bottom. Instead, I saw him. It. The body on the bottom. It was sort-of kneeling face down, with the head pointing with the current, slightly downstream. He was Indian also, and he was wearing red trunks with a yellow square patch directly in the middle of the belt-line on his back. His arms were sort of hanging out, the way a little kid's arms do when they have floaties on. Like a scarecrow, but angling down at the elbow. The boy with the snorkel beat me to the bottom, and he began to pull the man by the armpits. Not a second later I was within reach, and I grabbed the man by the waist of his swimsuit and pulled him straight up. I don’t remember if there’s a certain method to pulling bodies off of the bottom during a rescue, but this one was quite effective. Perhaps because the boy was helping, but regardless, he felt light and it was very easy to pull him up.

I flipped him on his back, with my left arm under his left armpit and across his chest. I began towards the shore, and I could see the boy was trying to help me, although I could not feel him making any difference. As soon as we reached the surface, the body was no longer light. I was trying to keep his head out of the water, but after each kick in my side stroke, when I regrouped for the next kick, my head was going under and probably his as well. I was aware of people shouting “keep his head out of the water,” namely the fat drunk man: later I would wonder what kind of idiot would say that. Obviously the man has been down for a long time. Obviously his lungs are full of water. I kicked and kicked, and more men came to help, men I had not seen until now, men who were not helping to look. One man in particular I remember, he was probably thirty and very thick and muscular. He could probably out-pull an ox. I kept kicking and they were all pulling and pushing the body with me, and some of them held the man’s head up out of the water.

Finally we got very near the shore, to where I could touch the bottom. There was a tree submerged just under the surface, maybe an inch or two under the water. I was still underneath the man, and he had to go over the tree. I began to pull him up over, but I was too slow; the rest of the men were not going to allow this (me being slow), and the body kept going when I did not. I became pinned under him on the tree and I was scraping my back on the bark. I managed to slip out, and the men continued with the body to shore. One man fell into the water, and I asked if he was alright.

The men put the body just out of the water onto the bank, his feet still dangling in the water. Immediately a man jumped on and began CPR. With the first breath he administered, the victim vomited. It was yellow and looked like egg drop soup. He worked for a few seconds as I approached the bank.

By now, several other men had climbed out of the water onto the bank, and they moved the man further from the water into a slightly open space under the canopy. The river is a “scenic” river, and has most of the native growth. It was basically a wet hammock, with canopy and open ground. When they moved him, some of the vomit came forth and spilled onto his belly and shorts, and around his mouth.

The man giving CPR was wearing a strange bathing suit. It looked like a skirt, but was cut up the sides along his legs. Probably he had a Speedo underneath. The diver in the wet suit jumped up beside him and began giving compressions. I did not see anyone check for a pulse, although they may have while I was still climbing out.

By now, a small crowd had gathered, including all the men involved with the rescue, some more men that had gathered, and some women that had gathered. Several were Indian. I’m not sure if they just happened up there as we pulled the man out, or if they had been watching and not helping. I remember seeing people along the shore while we looked, but I did not see their faces.

There was some debate among the crowd as to what the proper steps were in CPR, mostly about the ratio of compressions to breaths. “Five to two!” “No, fifteen to three!”

I remembered enough to know that at the time of my certification, the Red Cross standard was fifteen compressions and then two rescue breaths. My instructor also told us during our class that the standard was soon to be thirty compressions for every two breaths, as they had discovered that pumping the blood was vastly more important than giving breaths.

And I said so. “Thirty to two,” I told the man giving breaths. To me, he seemed to be in charge of the CPR, while the other man was doing the compressions when he was told, and stopping when the man decided to give a breath.

“They know what they’re doing,” a couple of people shouted at me from the crowd. I didn’t respond aloud, but I thought “so do I.” At least in some instances.

The man didn’t respond to me. He began to give another breath, and I watched as the victim’s cheeks puffed out. I asked the man “are your breaths going in?” I remember from training that sometimes we had to tilt and re-tilt the head several times before we achieved an acceptable airway. The man did not seem to be tilting the head back very far, but he responded in some manner, I think a nod, that his breaths were going in.

Again some people were mad about my giving advice, and told me that the men “knew what they were doing.”

The man giving compressions was listening to the loudest among the crowd, and perhaps the man giving breaths, and doing only five compressions. We didn’t know each other, but he knew I had been out looking for the body. I tapped him on the arm and he looked at me, and I told him “thirty. Do thirty compressions.” He nodded and began doing more compressions. I’m not sure why he listened to me instead of anyone else, but he began doing as many as he could in-between breaths.

They continued CPR, and all I could think about was the airway. I couldn’t see the chest rising, although sometimes I couldn’t watch. The victim’s face seemed almost horizontal to me, and I remember from class that it was almost a forty-five degree angle. I looked at Alicia, who was standing near me, and I said “I don’t know if the breaths are going in.”

She mentioned the vomit, asking “aren’t they supposed to turn him on his side?” I couldn’t remember, but even the thought was fleeting as I was more concerned with the tilt of the head.

A man showed up and pushed his way through the crowd. He was an extremely obese man, and he was wearing the blue collared shirt that signified he was a Ginnie Springs staff member. He came prepared, with a bag full of medical supplies and what not. He was probably certified the same as I am, as a first responder. He got out a safety mask and bag-valve, and gave a couple of breaths that way. He appeared to be frustrated, as if they weren’t going in. The man in the tribal bathing suit said “let me do another breath! I know I can get it in!”

I have more than a little respect for that man. The victim had vomited at least once more at this point, and vomit was all around his mouth. The man was not deterred and was still able and willing to give rescue breaths. I’m certain that I could not have given one without vomiting myself. I almost vomited watching him; my reaction to seeing or smelling vomit is to vomit myself.

I looked back to Alicia and asked silently, “Where are our tubes?” They were rentals, and expensive ones. She was standing on the bank with everyone else, and floating in the murky water were several tubes, but they were all pink. We had a blue one and a pink one.

She told me the snorkel boy had taken them downriver to save the daughter of one of these men, who was floating downstream on a tube of her own. I nodded my approval, and looked back to the victim.

The obese man had inserted an airway into the victim’s throat, which is a plastic piece designed to keep the tongue from falling back and covering the airway. I heard him talking to someone, almost yelling to talk above the crowd:

“I need the AED. It’s in my truck.”

A girl responded “okay!” and took off in the direction of the spring, where there was a parking area and pavilion.

The obese man was assembling--and shortly thereafter began to use--a device which was a pump to suck out debris from the victim’s mouth and throat. It was a little bottle with a lever that pumped the material through a little straw. He stuck it down in the victim’s throat several times and recovered a less than substantial amount of what looked like water, maybe three ounces.

He was still standing; I never saw him kneel next to the body or begin to take over. The tribal-suited man was still giving breaths using his mouth, over the airway. He didn’t use the pocket mask or bag-valve. Memories of my training passed through my head about breathing through the mask.

I looked up the path leading to the parking lot, hoping to see the girl returning with the AED. An AED is a portable versions of the “shock paddles” that you see in movies, where they shock the heart back into an acceptable rhythm. Instead I saw a man in uniform.

I was standing next to Alicia, and I told her “here comes an EMT.” She looked also, and the man was walking briskly, but rather carefully, toward the scene. He didn’t have a bag. I envisioned EMTs holding a bag. He got closer and I saw a star on his outfit, the deputy’s star.

I was very disappointed. “It’s just a police officer.” I’m not positive, but I think that police officers just have the same degree of training as myself and the obese man. He approached the victim, and if he said anything, I didn’t hear it. He kept his hands near his belt, maybe fingering some of his equipment.

A woman had kneeled next to the man giving rescue breaths. She appeared to be holding the head of the victim, perhaps keeping the head tilted. I’m fairly certain she was drunk. She had been saying earlier “fifteen to three” talking about compressions, which was closer to accurate, but was still not correct.

She commanded the officer: “You need to get these people out of here and give these men room to work.”

The officer said “Okay, everybody, give them some room.”

Everyone in the crowd shuffled back a few inches, and the woman was not pleased.

“These men need room!” In reality, they did not. The crowd was standing probably four to five feet back in all directions. The only room you need is to lay the body down and kneel, and perhaps a foot or two to maneuver in. Certainly they had room. However, I’m not a fan of people who stand around trying to get in on some drama at anyone’s expense.

The officer instantly responded to the drunken woman. “Everyone get out of here! NOW! If you're not working on the body, leave!” It was clear to me that he was not going to reason with me. I wasn’t physically helping on the body, and hadn’t been verbally helping for a minute or more, at least since the obese man had shown up, and so I began to retreat to the water. Alicia came with me.

As I was wading into the water, I heard the officer threaten to arrest someone. The man who responded appeared to be half black and half white. He had his hair in short dreadlocks or braids, tied back in a pony tail, and was probably among the most drunk of the bystanders. “Chill out man. We’re just trying to help.” This was a lie, outright. He had been standing in the back, talking almost jokingly about the proceedings, and had made no move except to open his mouth or raise his beer to his lips.

A man approached the officer and told him that he was a nurse, and asked if there was anything he could do to help. The officer was still a bit huffy; he said “not unless one of those people asks you to” and gestured towards the CPR crew. The man replied that he would wait “right over there” and to let him know if they needed anything. As far as I know, nurses are trained to the same level as I am--one was in my training class.

We retreated to some tubes. We now had two pink ones, and we pushed off. Slowly the current caught us and began pushing us downstream. Still on the bank nearby was the first man who was rescued. He was still being consoled, although not by the same woman as before. Now there was a man on either side, and on his right was the strong, muscular man who had helped pull the body from the river. I saw the young, strong, tattooed man pull the middle-aged Indian man’s head to his shoulder and hold it there. He laid his head on top and patted the man on the back.

As we floated, we kept watching the scene. Some people were slightly ahead of us in the current, a large group of tubers, maybe twelve of them. They were talking about what happened, speaking disparagingly about the Indian man for being in the water if he wasn’t able to swim. I could see the man giving compressions still pumping furiously, valiantly. At some point the girl returned with the AED, and I could hear the obese man’s commands:

“Clear! I’m clear! Everybody clear! SHOCKING!” He had to stop momentarily as one man was apparently still touching or very close to the body. I could see the body when he yelled “shocking“, but it didn’t appear to move like in the movies.

Finally we heard some sirens and the EMTs arrived. We saw them carry the body away on a white stretcher.

As we floated downstream, we could still hear the shouting of some people who had been upstream and in view of the whole scene. They were swinging from a rope swing on the opposite side of the river, hooting and hollering, oblivious to the struggle of two men in the river.

My thoughts became clearer, and I began to question myself. I was probably the most well-trained person on the scene initially, why hadn’t I acted in a better manner? I should have made sure 911 was called immediately; instead I assumed it was (and I’m not sure still). I should have shouted for ten or twenty seconds initially to get more people in the water searching for the body, or I should have had Alicia do that. Instead, we wasted precious time looking for the body with just a handful of men. Possibly I should have taken over CPR when I climbed onto the bank, or assisted. I could not have given rescue breaths with the vomit on the man, and I don’t know any more about CPR than your average certified person. But maybe I should have corrected the things that I felt were being done wrong, mainly the airway.

Even if I had, care would have been at best acceptable. I did not think to check a pulse until afterwards. I did not think to turn the victim when he vomited. I did not think about the proper way to give compressions. Alicia thinks the man giving them was giving them in the wrong area and not with enough force or frequency. It never crossed my mind, but thinking back, she may have been right.

Regardless, I question my response ability in an emergency. Clearly hindsight is 20/20, but I feel like things could have been done better.

The time frame on the events was probably one minute from when the girls told us until I began looking for a body, two minutes of looking (it seemed like longer to me, maybe eight minutes, but Alicia says no more than two minutes and she had a better perspective), 3 minutes from surfacing the body until the obese man arrived, and five minutes or more from then until EMTs arrived. I’m not sure what the response time is to a place like that; it seemed fairly “remote.” We are not sure how long the man was underwater before we came around the corner and began to search.

I researched drownings to a small degree and discovered that the longest recorded submerged victim who survived was a child in icy cold water that was under for seventy minutes. In normal circumstances someone is dead beyond recovery after three minutes. Maybe the man never had a chance.

We finished floating down the river and went to take a shower. We took back our tubes, and later had dinner and made a campfire. We spoke to nobody else the rest of the day, because we had chosen a campsite that was “off the beaten path.” Nobody recognizes me as part of the rescue team; probably most of the visitors were unaware of the entire incident. The next morning an employee was putting some trash in a dumpster. I approached her and asked what happened with the man.

“I’m not sure how he’s doing. I think he’s okay, but I haven’t heard for sure. Well, the older man. Of course, you heard that the younger man died at the scene.”

It was what I expected, but I had prayed and hoped throughout the night that I would not have a death on my conscience. I’m not sure if I acted inappropriately, or if I was obliged by my training to do anything that I failed to do. However, I (or anyone else) could have done some things that may have saved that man’s life.

I cannot remember anyone yelling for help besides the two girls, and they did not seem distressed. They seemed like they were yelling at a certain person trying to get their attention. The boys yelling for goggles should have been yelling for help, screaming about a man in the water. So should I have been once I found out there was a body in the water that nobody could see.

All in all, I’m proud for what I did and ashamed of what I could have done, but didn’t. I don’t blame or question my willingness to help; I would have done anything to save that man’s life. I just wish I could have performed better and maybe there’d be a man to thank me for it.]]> General http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=25 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:23:19 -0600 http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=24 Milwee Middle School in Orlando) I was in gifted classes, and all the gifted kids had the same classes (with each other, I mean). There was this one girl who was sorta good looking, but really prim and proper. She didn't fit in in Orlando, she was kind of snobbish. Rich. Her name was Holly, and she owned horses. She loved horses. Lived and breathed them. All of her essays, conversations, shirt logos were about horses. She had a huge red backpack with a little horse keychain dangling on it. She doodled horses. They probably ate at her dinner table. And so, being kids, everyone started calling her Holly the Horse.

For a couple of years it went on relentlessly, she would occasionally be reduced to tears. And then out of the blue she told or english teacher, Mrs. Oswald that she was moving to another school. This day would be her last. Mrs. Oswald asked why, and Holly told her: she couldn't deal with being harassed about horses anymore.

Mrs. Oswald flipped, as any good teacher would. Totally freaked out on the whole class. Went into a tirade five, maybe ten minutes long. I can remember it vividly, we were working in the dark on the overhead projector. Mrs. Oswald pointed out a couple of individuals in particular, one being another girl named Holly who was head horse-girl-hater--apparently Mrs. Oswald wasn't totally in the dark.

Finally, she started to calm down some, and said "I mean, come on guys. You're really beating a dead horse here." The class ERUPTED. EVERYONE laughed, me included (and I was nice to Holly).

Holly cried profusely. Mrs Oswald tried (and failed) to quiet down the class.

Slip of the tongue, what can you do?]]> General http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=24 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:34:26 -0600 http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=46
One warm summer night, my dad shook me awake. It was midnight; time to get out on the lake. At night, there's no speedboats or jet-skis churning up the water--and everyone knows the fish bite better at night. For a minute I wasn’t sure I wanted to move, but the thought of my first night trip on the lake spurred me out of bed and before I knew it I was dressed, standing on the dock with my rod and tackle box in hand. We headed out to a favorite, “secret-spot” that I thought only my father and I were privy to. I couldn’t see, but I could easily work the rod in the dark; years of casting every day had ingrained the process in my mind. It was second nature.

We caught a few “little guys,” bass weighing one and a half pounds or less, and decided to move on to the next spot. We headed to a spot off the shore of a public beach in Pokagon State Park. There was a large grass flat on the bottom, with five or six feet from the top of the grass to the surface of the water. Out in this open area, the lure of choice is a black spinner bait; a quickly-retrieved, flashy, vibrating bait. My dad told me how to fish it: let it hit the water, count to three, and begin reeling it back. The key is to have the bait skim the surface of the weeds, now and then pausing a little so the bait drops a foot or two.While fishing in the dark so many things are important: keeping the lure away from my father so as not to hook him, being silent so the fish can’t hear us banging in our aluminum boat, and doing everything possible without the lantern, as it might scare the fish away. I fumbled a few times and made some noises, but my father was forgiving as it was my first time out at night. He told me not to worry: he had a good feeling about that night.

I was “chuckin’ and reelin’ “ for what seemed a long time. The ripples in the moonlight would fade, and I would make another cast. We weren’t getting much action, and I was beginning to get tired. I couldn’t complain, though: my family doesn’t complain while we’re fishing. Plus, I wouldn't dream of being excluded from any future night trips.

I was reeling the bait in, and gave it a pause. When I restarted, I got the slack line reeled up and felt a weight on the end of my line. “Great,” I thought, “grass bass.” That’s what we called weeds on the hook. Then the grass pulled back, and my years of training kicked in. I set the hook so hard I nearly toppled out of the boat trying to rip his lips off. He was on to my game, and he tried to dive into the grass. I muscled him back up, keeping him in the open water--you can lose a fish in the weeds. I was reeling like mad, and my dad was cheering me on. Another dive, another save. The he made it to the top and broke the surface, jumping and flipping back and forth, trying to shake the bait from his mouth. I could see him in the moonlight, and it only made me more excited: I could tell he was a big ‘un. Soon he was exhausted, and I eased him up to the boat. My dad netted him and we turned on the lantern.

I had bagged the biggest fish of my life. Not only the biggest fish of my life, but a smallie, the smallmouth variety that was so coveted! We put him in the fish basket, and my dad patted me on the back. I was as high as the stars: that fish was a monster! We kept fishing until dawn, and my dad caught a lunker himself, although it couldn’t compete with mine. The weigh-in results confirmed that: my five-pounder had beat his four-pounder, and tied his personal best for smallies, and I was only six!

I went back to bed, and woke up around lunch time. I came downstairs and my dad was frying up our fish. I shared my meal with my dad and my little sister, and I had never tasted such a wonderful taste. I finished up my lunch and hollered “see ya” to my dad as I ran out to the dock to try and round up another big 'un.]]> General http://sejje.net/index.php?itemid=46 Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:39:00 -0600