Thursday, September 29, 2005

Sad NYC Story

I'm in New York City and I've had a great 2 days but today something really really sad happened. I was at a reception for a newspaper organization with other newspapers and ad agencies at a restaurant just a couple of blocks from the hotel. I was talking to one of my agency reps when all of a sudden we heard this terrible crash behind the bar. The bartender was on the floor!

He was an older man, a real typical New Yorker, who had looked at me impatiently while I tried to decide what to order to drink. One of the other agency reps said that she asked him for a diet coke and he dropped the glass and fell to the floor really hard. She thought that somehow it was her fault but we assured here that it probably wasn't. It sounds like he either had a heart attack or an epilepsy attack of some sort and fell down.

What struck me the most was how everyone panicked and not one of us knew CPR! Not one of us! It made me feel so shameful! I took it in high school 20 years ago and there's not telling how I could hurt him rather than help him. I felt so helpless there wishing I could help him in some way. It made me think again of how fragile our lives are and how we can be gone in just a minute.

The ambulance got there right away but at one point someone said he wasn't breathing. I don't know if that was true. I heard his head was bleeding and he threw up, probably from a concussion.

The evening reception for our event is at a club nearby but I don't feel like going right away. I want to rest for a little bit and then get dressed and to go at my leisure. I feel weird rushing there right after what I just witnessed

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