I had an interesting Friday morning (the 19th of August).

My riding buddy, Kevin, and I decided to go for a bike ride, even though it was wet and threatening rain. It was my last chance to ride for a week so after taking about (via IM), we decided to go ahead.

We were riding along, near our turn around, when we saw a man sitting on a bench at the entrance to a group of mountain bike trails. He was slumped over, leaning way to the right, and was obviously asleep, or worse. Kevin and I noted him, and asked ourselves if we should stop. I said, "We're turning around in a while and we can check when we get back." But, as I thought about it (and I am sure Kevin did as well), I thought that we should check now. So, we turned around and went back. Kevin went over and tried to wake him up, first by saying, "Sir". THen he shook his shoulder, and begin to tale louder to him. After 30 seconds or so, he looked at me and asked if we should call 911. I told him to keep trying and I got my cell phone out (I'll always take a cell phone riding with me from now on). There was no sign of life, although he would occasionally "snort". That startled us, but gave us hope that he was still alive. After another 30 seconds (or less) of trying, I called 911. They needed to know where we were on the trail, so I set out on my bike looking for a mile marker while talking to the 911 operator on my bike. I thought I heard Kevin calling me so I circled back, but he was just trying to wake him up. So I went back, found the mile marker, reported that, and continued up to the nearest street to see if I could find its name. I couldn't, so I turned around and headed back to where Kevin was (3-4 minutes after I placed the call). He was still trying to wake him up. When I got back, Kevin said, "He's dying Chuck"! One look told me Kevin was right. His face was turning blue. The 911 operator asked if we were willing to do CPR. We said yes and she started giving us instructions over the phone. The first chore was to get the man on his back on the ground. Kevin and a runner who had stopped to help managed to do that--the man was quite overweight and probably weighed 250. Plus, they had to get him bike helmet off. We (Kevin) started with CPR, alternating forcing air into his mouth and compressing his chest. After a few minutes of that, with no effect, the police arrived. Three cars, all within a couple of minutes of each other.

We were glad to see them. They were very professional, and seemed well trained to respond. They took over the CPR, but were not optimistic that he was alive. I heard one of them say, "He's gone". But, they kept at it, much more experienced at it than we were. One of them was the breather, another was the chest compressor, and the third was checking for pulse. They rotated after a couple of minutes. Finally (it seemed like forever, but was probably only 3-4 minutes), the ambulance arrived. They brought the AED and I think they tried that, but it wasn't clear to me. They got him on the gurney and wheeled him to the ambulance. The last I saw of him, they were working on him in the ambulance.

After giving the police some information, we got back on our bikes and started home. We didn't know his fate, but we were not optimistic. We both started hammering (bike speak for riding hard) after a while because it felt good to focus on hard physical effort rather than the intense emotions of the moment.

Needless to say, we were shook up. For me, at least, this was the closest I have come to being around someone who is dying. Both of us were thinking what could we have done sooner, or better, or different to have changed the outcome. As I think about, I think we did the best we could. I was proud of Kevin. He is a fastidious person (would you agree with that Kevin?) and giving mouth-to-mouth to this man was not a pretty site. I could tell Kevin was grossed out--I was and I was on the phone with the 911 operator. But, Kevin took a deep breath and did it. And, I he did a great job.

One thing I could have done, that I didn't, was say a prayer for the man. That occurred to me on the ride home and I was disappointed in myself for not thinking about it at the time. As a person who believes in the power of prayer, I should have invoked that power at the time. I had called Carolyn and told her what was going on to alert her that I would be late getting home. She told me later when we were taking about it that she had immediately said a prayer for the man. That was both a consolation to me (somebody was invoking the power of God in the situation) and a further amplification of my disappointment with myself (why didn't I think of that?). I guess I was totally immersed in the tactical situation.

I learned a couple of lessons from this experience.

An obvious one is don't take life for granted. This man was out for bike ride and most likely never came home. We looked at his odometer. He had only ridden three miles. He must have not been feeling good, sat down on the bench to rest, and never woke up. When the police arrived, they noticed right away that he had heart surgery before.

Another is if something looks really odd, there might be a problem. We almost just kept going, and I think we both a little reluctant to wake this guy up. What if he was just taking a nap--we would have felt a little stupid. I'll be more willing to feel a little stupid in the future if I ever see another situation like this one.

As an update, Kevin sent me a link to the obituary of a Mr. Daly who died on August 19th.