My Brother...MY Hero...EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW CPR!!!

This is an email I got from my brother. It's long but worth it! Everyone should read! He is AMAZING. Love you little Brother.

So yesterday was MLK Jr. day. And I was listening to Dr. King's speech on the "Good Samaritan." I have heard it maybe a dozen times before and I always cry. 30 minutes later, I met up with an old friend for the first time in a month.

On a whim, we took separate cars to her house. She placed an order at a drive-thru as I went inside to order. She got hers immediately and drove home as I waited for several minutes. I arrive at her house, we stop by a cafe to visit some of her old co-workers, and then we head to the park to eat lunch and play a board game.

There was an elementary school on our left, and a track of houses on our right. Just as my friend says, "Let's cross here," I hear some commotion from one of the houses. As we are crossing the street, I hear some cries of distress from the same house. My friend and I both look at each other. "I think I should go check that out," I declared. I walk back across the street and slowly walk up the drive way. There are the sounds of screaming, yelling, crying, and some thudding and clanging. Thinking it may be a domestic violence incident I get reach into my pocket for my cell phone to call 911.

Just then, a woman bursts out of the front door saying, "... yes, we have a medical emergency... [something like] the ambulance is on its way? Please hurry." Thinking that everything that I could have done has just been done, I walk away toward my friend and repeat what the woman said to my friend. "Yea," she says, "I heard her." "Well," I conclude,"I guess there is nothing else we can do. Should we go?"

At that moment, two more women possibly in their 40s burst out of the front door. A middle aged man is carrying an limp child wearing trunks in his arms; he is sobbing. I look to my friend. "Are you certified for CPR?" "Yes." "Should we go over and..." The man from across the street sees me and calls out: "SIR, PLEASE HELP!" I look at my friend and then sprint across the street. The sobbing man is on his knees in the front yard- still holding the boy in his arms. Mechanically, I point to the grass and say, "Sir, lie him down." The three woman are on their knees screaming and crying. The woman to my immediate right is struggling in broken English with the 911 operator on the phone. She looks at me with terror in her eyes, and without any cue, I reach out, and she hands me the phone.

I realize I do not know if my friend is behind me. But there she is... she kneels down and checks the boy's pulse. His eyes are in the back of his head, his mouth gapes open to the sky. He's cold. I say something like, "Hi, I speak English....And my friend is CPR certified... She's about to do chest compress..." The 911 operator begins giving instructions, but I cannot hear anything because of the screaming family. I barely make out the dispatcher saying, "Get everybody away... don't have her start on him yet... tell them to get out of..." The man kneeling before his son-wringing his hands-does not hear me. I do not realize that I am floating across the grass, only to touch his shoulder firmly and say,"Sir, I need you to move back 3 feet that way [pointing behind him] so that I can give the right instructions." And he moves back. I turn around and touch the eldest woman's shoulder (the one who handed me the phone), and I say, "Ma'am, I need you to move back 3 feet so I can hear and give the proper instructions." And she moves back. I put the phone back to my ear. "Okay." "Is his chest moving on its own?", inquires the dispatcher,"Is his chest moving on its own?" "Only with compressions... No, it's not moving."

"How old is the child." "How old is the child," I ask," ?Cuantos anos tiene el nino?" "D-Dieciseis," one of the women replies. [Sixteen] "?El nino tiene dieciseis anos?", I reply back.[The child is 16 years old?] "Siete... s-s-s-siete anos."[7... 7 years old] "The child is seven years old ma'am, "I repeat back to the dispatcher.

After a chest compression, my friend reacts to a gurgling sound inside the child's chest. "Oh no...He's got water in his lungs." My friend studies him pensively, and then begins mouth to mouth and chest compressions. "Ma'am," I say to the dispatcher," He's got water in his lungs." My friend finishes a cycle and the boy's jaw perceptibly twitches, and then stillness. All of the family members throw up their hands in agony and scream. "C'mon Katie,"I part beg-part encourage my friend. She repeats the same cycle... again and again. And every few times, the boy's jaw or neck... twitches... and then nothing...

The dispatcher orders over the phone,"As soon as he breathes on his own, turn him on his side." The dispatchers instructions fade into the milieu of a sun turning yellow, and grass becoming cold.

The police arrive and the cop kneels down by the child's head, next to the father. "The cops are here," I tell the dispatcher. "I'll stay on the line until the ambulance comes,"she replies. My friend keeps at it. I hear myself say,"He's almost there... he's almost there." And after the fourth or fifth cycle, he coughs water and bubbles form around his mouth. Now kneeling, I touch my friend's arm and say... "Now we need to turn him on his side, Katie...Turn him on his side." The police officer, my friend and myself ease the child over as he coughs up water, and vomits. The other family members rejoice and cry out. "All right, he's breathing on his own and he's on his side."

"Have him wiggle his fingers... have him wiggle his fingers..." the dispatcher calmly affirms. The cop overhears me repeat back to the dispatcher and says: "C'mon buddy...wiggle your fingers...wiggle your fingers..." Nothing. His whole family begins telling him in English and Spanish to wiggle his fingers. I kneel down again, and say: "Mueven tus dedos... Si me puedes oir, mueve tus dedos... mueve tus dedos"[Move your fingers (wrong verb form)... If you can hear me, move your fingers... move your fingers...] And the little boy squeezes his hand together once and wiggles his fingers. The family members throw their hands to the sky, and weep. "He wiggled his fingers... the paramedics and firefighters are here, ma'am," I inform the dispatcher. "Okay, thanks for helping...[click]"

The firefighters and the paramedics roll the stretcher onto the grass. The child begins moaning, and then crying. They fit an oxygen mask on his head. He and the father- if I remember correctly- head off in the ambulance. The police question us... everybody. And the grandmother(?) hugs and kisses my friend and I. One of the police officers hugs my friend who did the CPR... who brought this kid back.

We were allowed to leave the scene, and we walked around the neighborhood, trying to process what just happened. We brought somebody back... I later learned there is only a 10% chance that once someone hits that point... no pulse... no breath... for several minutes, there is only a 10% that they can ever come back. And we brought him back. My friend was my hero that day. "You were my conscience, Christian," she said. This was a friend who always thought I was a little overzealous about being a do-gooder. Often thinking that I was looking for problems that might not be present. It all came together... Why... Why do we do this?

Martin Luther King, Jr. explains what I could never justify in words, 'The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'" That's it; right there. Whatever the time or place, there is always that moment. There is that wrinkle in time where we have to ask ourselves, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"