On the way home

[pegkerr]

It was hot and humid when I left work, close to ninety. And the wind was gusty, in the wrong direction, and then I realized that my tires were low, so it was really taking a lot of effort to move the bike. And I just wasn't in the mood. I'll take the light rail, I decided. So I crossed the tracks and swooped into the rail station at Cedar-Riverside--and then braked abruptly at the sight in front of me.

A man was lying stretched out on the ground, his head about six inches from the edge of the platform, having a seizure.

I hopped off the bike and rushed over, wondering why on earth none of the half dozen or so onlookers were helping him. They were, I realized later--two of them were on their cell phones, calling 911, but no one was approaching him. It also occurred to me later that most of the onlookers were Somali women, and I believe they have a religious taboo against touching any man to whom they are not related. I wonder, but do not know, whether that taboo can overlooked in a medical emergency.

My first thought was to check him for a medical alert ID bracelet, and sure enough, I discovered, when I extracted his arm (with a little difficulty) from underneath his body, there was a bracelet with his name and his condition: epilepsy. By that time, one of the women had reached and was talking with the 911 operator, and the operator asked the caller to give the phone to me, since I was assessing his condition. The operator told me not to try to restrain him or to attempt to put anything in his mouth (I knew that, but I'll bet a lot of people confronted with an epileptic episode wouldn't). She transferred me to an EMT, who talked to me some more, as I held the man's hand. After about five minutes the seizure stopped, although he was quite dazed for awhile afterwards. A light rail train pulled into the station, and the conductor was obviously concerned, and so didn't pull the train out. The crossing gate kept clanging, and the train kept sounding bells, and then the conductor came on the station loudspeaker to let the passengers disembarking know that there was a medical situation going on. It was all but impossible to hear the EMT on the phone over all the noise.

But eventually the confusion was sorted out and we waited for the ambulance to arrive. I continued to hold the man's hand, mopping up the saliva that he had drooled with a wad of Kleenex that a passerby offered to me. I talked to him as reassuringly as I could, addressing him by his name, telling him that my name was Peg, that help was on the way. I held up his fallen hat over his head so that the shadow fell across his face, until another bystander took it and held it up for me. He still wasn't able to verbalize by the time the paramedics arrived, but they pulled him aside and set him on a bench, dismissing the gurney back to the ambulance. He had some bleeding from scraped elbows and knees .

I thought about it as I got on the train with my bike to go home (and so great was my distraction that I realized, several stops later, that for the first time ever I had forgotten to pay for my ride. Sorry, Metro Transit. I still had a wad of unused Kleenex in my hand.). The whole incident, of course, was startling for the passersby, although personally I think I acquitted myself pretty well. I thought about all the milling around that people were doing, the startled squawks: Omigod! It's a medical emergency! But I suppose for him, it might be just routine--so routine that maybe it happens every month. Or every week. Or even several times a week. Maybe he came around to find me holding his hand, smiling down at him, and all he could think (once his brain started working again) was "Oh, great, they had to go call the ambulance again. Geez."

But I kept thinking about how close he was to the tracks. His head was a mere six inches from the edge of the platform as he convulsed there in front of me. What if he had fallen on the tracks themselves? I don't think I could have lifted a convulsing man back to the platform by myself. What if it hadn't been a five minute wait before the train came; what if it had been pulling into the station when he fell?

Well, it didn't happen this time. I did what I could. That is what it must be like to live with epilepsy--to know that your life, at each moment, might be endangered if you fall in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and your salvation may depend on the split second decisions of frightened strangers.

A curious reliance on grace, is it not?

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Good for you for your willingness to step outside your comfort zone, and for your calm head in the emergency.

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

A couple of weeks ago, a young man fainted in line in front of us at a convenience store, and I found myself being one of those onlookers (minus the whispering), though partly because the clerk was really on top of the situation.

When I took the Red Cross CPR class several years ago, they told us that the hardest thing to do is moving past that should-I-act barrier. It's really true. People like you who can move past that are really wonderful.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm vertiginous, not epileptic. But when I stop to think about how many of my personal habits have accreted over the years as safeguards for when I fall in public spaces, including dangerous ones, it's more than a little alarming.

I'm afraid that carefully not thinking of it beyond the practicalities has been more my mode of operation than consciously relying on grace. For whatever that says about me.

[febobe.livejournal.com]

As the wife of a seizure sufferer, I can honestly say that I live in fear of that kind of thing.

You did a great and beautiful thing today, and it brings tears to my eyes to think of it. I can only hope that if it ever happens to D. without me around, we'd be blessed enough for someone like you to be nearby.

Thank you so much. :)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Good for you.

[dreamflower]

Oh my! If you had not decided to go by rail instead of on your bike...yipes!

It's so good you knew what to do--I'm very much afraid I'd have been one of the 911 callers, afraid of doing the wrong thing to him and making things worse. There are some emergencies I'm good at, but not medical ones.

[only-sound.livejournal.com]

There's an article about this in the Washington Post today. Apparently by stepping in, you would be in the minority.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/15/AR2008071503150.html

Hopefully the more people like you who share things like this will help us all to remember that the only way there is grace in the world is for us to deliver it.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, I didn't even make the connection before you pointed it out, but I had read an article about that case in the psychiatric waiting room right before leaving work. I wonder if that affected my behavior? I didn't even think of it until you mentioned it. I also wonder whether my behavior was affected by the effect that I sort of swooped on the scene quickly, since I was on the bike, and my view of the other bystanders was blocked a little by the shelter--so I didn't have time to focus on other bystanders and what they were doing, only him. I did move very quickly, with no hesitation. The article might have affected me, but oddly enough, I didn't think of it at all at the time.

[felsong.livejournal.com]

Reading that Washington Post article gave me goosebumps. We studied this bystander effect in class (I was a communications student) and it's hard to believe that it's not just theory..it's real.

My family had such an experience once when we were driving along a small but slightly busy road. I spotted a pregnant woman clinging to the fence and tryin to walk while in obvious pain (She had blacked out in the heat and fallen to the floor, bumping her forehead and scraping her elbows and knees). Told my folks and my dad pulled over so we could help. Perhaps it was "grace" that made me see her but in the end we contacted her parents, her husband and the ambulance that took her to the hospital=)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

My brother has epilepsy. He's been seizure-free for years, but had several in his teens. I can tell you two things: even after a petit mal seizure, he was quite dazed for a while. I never saw him right after a grand mal seizure; I was off to college by then. I can easily imagine him being dazed enough to step onto the tracks even after the seizure was over, so your care was doubly valuable. And second, even at his worst, when he had a few in a year there was never a time when the sort of help you gave would have been routine and unappreciated. Of course, some people have them much more often, but even if that were the case, this was a particularly dangerous location and as you saw, not everyone is able to give the care you did. I can't imagine that his only thought was 'Oh, no, not again.' This time, you *were* the grace.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you were there. I've been taking first aid classes, and you handled that just as you ought.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking as a newly-diagnosed Epileptic who's terrified that someday her Complex Partial Seizures will graduate to Generalized Seizures (the type that the gentleman you helped had), I thank you.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for those words; you are welcome. My best wishes, and I hope that whatever episodes you might have in the future, there will always be help at hand.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I hope you're around if I ever have an emergency. I've dealt with seizing people a couple of times, and I know it's really upsetting.

We are always relying on some kind of grace, I think. There are so many chances for terrible things to happen. Sometimes I look a little scar on my eyebrow and think how different my life would have been if whatever happened to me had hit just an inch lower.

[weaselmom.livejournal.com]

You are awesome. You were an angel for that man. And I know you totally could have lifted him off the track.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well done! Knowing what to do is one thing; doing it in the emergency situation is quite another.

[wordswoman.livejournal.com]

Good for you! We all wonder how we would react, when faced by a situation like that. Now you know.

[joy0823.livejournal.com]

I use a wheelchair, and very often depend on the kindness of strangers, so I thank you. It makes me feel better knowing that you are people like you out there.

I do want to point out one thing, because I think you're the kind of person who would be receptive to this and sensitive to it. Many people with disabilities prefer "people first" terminology. So, people with epilepsy, not epileptics, people who use wheelchairs, not the wheelchair-bound (and please not confined to a wheelchair... I'm confined without the chair!). Of course, everyone has different preferences, and I think there may be something of a generation gap here. Also, I might be particularly sensitive to this because I've had several experiences of being referred to as "the wheelchair" (just yesterday by an entire busload of people) that left me feeling really vulnerable and invisible. I hope you take this in the spirit in which it's intended... I'm really not trying to scold or be the "PC police." Just trying to take an opportunity for a bit of consciousness-raising when I see it. :)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I will keep your words in mind. And I'll edit the post.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Just to let you know, this is something that even the pharmaceutical companies are training on and it is part of the style guide for all our medical writing. One of the first things that new writers learn when they come to our company is to use the people-first terminology. So it's spreading!

[cathschaffstump.livejournal.com]

What a story!

But good for you, for being there and being helpful.

My mother had seizures. It's something you sort of get used to, that serendipity.

Catherine

[irinaauthor.livejournal.com]

You were so brave. I'm sure the man was grateful you were nearby.

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

What you did for that man was amazing. I've seen someone have a seizure once, it was last year, and was trying to work myself up to go over, but the person had a friend with her and he knew exactly what to do. I don't know if I would have gone over or not.

[chamisa.livejournal.com]

You are a hero. I'm so grateful to know there are people like you in the world. What you did is already spreading positive ripples outward through the world. Who knows what effect you had on those who watched...maybe they will be influenced in the future to step up when they are needed instead of stand by and do nothing...and then someone who watches them will similarly be affected.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Good for you. You rock like a rocking thing.

One of my first impressions of the Boston area, when I was trying to get a job up here, was while en route to an interview, I slowed down at a rotary in Somerville. I was looking at something else -- a car to one side of me, I think -- when I heard a thump in front of me. I turned to look and saw people running from the sidewalks to the car in front of me that was partway into the rotary. I put my car in park and got out to see what was happening just in time to see a dozen men and women pick up a quite old Cadillac sedan and walk it backward off a bicyclist that was under the front end of it. Someone else was directing traffic. Three other people were on their phones, calling 911. Another person was approaching the visibly shaken older man who had been driving the Cadillac.

People can say what they like about how unfriendly Boston people are, but I think I'd rather be here than just about anywhere else if something bad was going to happen to me.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

You are truly a hero.

My youngest had an incident with non-febrile seizures as a toddler that had us worried for a while that she might have epilepsy. (Thankfully she does not.) I spent quite a lot of time back then thinking about what her life would be like if she did, and you are right -- so many things we take for granted would be barred to her. I am quite in awe of people who live with it every day.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

That is what it must be like to live with epilepsy--to know that your life, at each moment, might be endangered if you fall in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and your salvation may depend on the split second decisions of frightened strangers.

Yes. And knowing that, at any moment, your brain - your mind - can slip completely off the gears. It is a total and absolute loss of control. The knowledge that your body and mind cannot be relied upon, ever again.

*wry smile*

Hi. Epileptic here.

You did very well.