I look around at the beautiful morning sky and green grass and the funny freaks all around me, and I feel terrific and alive.  And that’s when I hear the scream.The scream that pierces the quiet morning calm.  

It’s a woman’s voice. She’s screaming.

“MEDIC!!  MEDIC!!” she cries out, desperately, “PLEASE, HELP!!  HE’S DYING!!”

She’s shrieking loudly and there’s real terror in her cries. Terror you can feel in your body. I turn to where the voice is coming from. I see a commotion about 50 feet away from where I’m standing. A crowd is beginning to form around the place where the screaming voice is coming from.

“MEDIC!! SOMEONE HELP!! PLEASE!”, she begs, “OH, GOD, HE’S DYING!!”

“PLEASE!!!”

I don’t think. I just start walking in the direction of the commotion. I head toward the scene and sound of her cries. There’s a large group of people gathered now.  They’re standing around someone lying on the ground.  The mass of onlookers is growing, and I can only see a pair of legs on the ground protruding through the thick of the spectators.  

A sense of panic is growing now. People nearby are running off in different directions, looking for some kind of help, assumedly. I hear people shouting on cell phones, trying to describe to the person on the other end of the line what exactly is going on, and where exactly it’s happening.  

“He’s lying on the ground and he’s not breathing!  Where am I?!?  I’m at the festival!!  We’re up in the mountains!!!  You need to send help!!!”  

They’re talking to 911 dispatchers. We’re in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. There are no medics here, at least no one nearby. There is no help.  And there’s something terrible happening here. I maneuver my way to the inside of the crowd and find myself standing over the screaming girl. She’s straddling the stomach of a man who is lying on the grass.  

She’s crying and shaking him, trying to wake him up. She’s slapping his face and she’s begging him to wake up. She’s hysterical. And he’s not waking up. He’s not sleeping, see. If he was, he’d most certainly wake up.  I take a closer look at him, and I see that his face is turning as blue as the turquoise morning sky.  He has a lazy smile spread across his face, from ear to ear, and his eyes are wide open, but there’s no life in his gaze. His stare is blank. If he’s seeing anything, it isn’t us.  

There’s a gray, ashen quality to the blue tint. He has overdosed, probably on heroin or fentanyl or some combination of something and he’s dying right in front of me.  There are no medics here. We’re up in the mountains. His girlfriend is having a nervous breakdown. There’s no help on the way.

And, somehow, I’ve found myself standing there, looking over him.

And, somehow, I know exactly what to do.

I crouch down and grab the screaming girl firmly by the back of her neck. We lock eyes. She holds my stare. Her face is hot with tears and her eyes look wild. I tell her to stop crying and to stop slapping him, and to kneel down beside him. I tell her to whisper into his ear, to tell him to “come back”. I tell her that he’s going to be okay, and not to worry. She’s teary and upset and confused, but she’s listening. She does what I say, putting her mouth next to the dying man’s ear and whispering to him, telling him to “come back” to her.  

She’s begging him. She’s pleading. I feel the side of his neck and find out what I already know – his heart has stopped beating. His blue face has already told me that his breathing has stopped, too. The commotion around me is growing.  The crowd has grown larger, and amidst the chaos of such a situation, I have suddenly taken on a leadership role.  

People are grabbing at my shirt, trying to hand me their cellular phones so that I can talk to the 911 dispatcher on the other end of the line who has no ability to help us right now. People are tapping me on the shoulder, trying to give me directions about how to revive the man,

“Pull his pants down!!!” They yell. 

“You need to shove ice cubes up his ass!!!” They tell me.

I hear people calling over to their friends:

“Look at this guy! He’s dying! Come see!”  

There are people snapping photographs. The situation is becoming more and more erratic. People do strange things in times of panic and emergency. There are a fair number of people laughing and yelling, jumping up and down, excited. Everyone is clearly in shock. And I can’t concentrate. I keep trying to begin resuscitation and someone interrupts – another 911 cell phone call, another tidbit of unsolicited advice.  

People are actually pushing each other and getting aggressive in order to have a better spot with which to view this disaster. To witness a dying man’s end. There is no order here.

Then, something strange happens. A young man comes running up, just appearing out of nowhere. He falls to the ground directly across from me, kneeling on the opposite side of the man. He spreads his arms out, and he begins to sway back and forth.  And he begins chanting, like singing. He’s praying, I think. He’s bowing his head up and down, and he’s singing, very loudly. And it’s beautiful.  It sounds like some ancient language, some old forgotten song.

It certainly isn’t English, or any other dialect that I’ve ever heard. With these chants comes silence — silence from the crowd. His prayer-song is captivating and casting a spell of ‘shut the fuck up’ over the panicked, rollicking crowd. The sounds emanating from his lungs completely quiet the group of people surrounding us.  Everyone just goes silent. Mute. The girl is still whispering in the man’s ear, telling him to “come back”.  

There is no distraction now. I can get to work.

I tilt the man’s head back, to open up his airway.  His skin is still warm, and it feels rubbery to me.  His neck is loose and lifeless. I press my lips against his, and form a tight seal.  I breathe deeply in through my nose, and exhale into his mouth through my own.

It makes a sound like air going into a vacuum cleaner when there’s something lodged in the hose. There’s a noise coming from his throat when I come up for another breath. It’s a crispy, rattling sound. The death rattle, they call it. The man is not breathing, but the air that I’ve given him still needs to exit his lungs.  

It’s a scary sound.  

I give him more breaths. I peek at his face in between each burst of air. It’s still the color of the sky as I begin giving him chest compressions.  The girl is still whispering. The chanting boy is still praying or singing or speaking in tongues, for all I know. It’s a surreal tableau of imagery.

I remember back to when I was first taught how to administer CPR. They told me that when simulating the heartbeat, it is most effective to try to keep a similar rhythm to the Bee-Gee’s disco song, “Stayin’ Alive”. This is what I do, though you shouldn’t ever confuse me with a fan of disco music, with few exceptions.

“1, 2, 3, 4, Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive…1, 2, 3, 4, Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive”

30 compressions. Two more breaths. Repeat. I’m actually singing this to myself in my mind as I pump his chest. The irony of the lyrics is not lost on me, and I actually chuckle to myself at the thought. His chest and his ribcage don’t have a lot of give. I’m worried that I may break his sternum. I push on anyway. Better some cracked bones than being dead, no?

I continue to pump his heart, and then I give him my wind. Then I pump his heart again. Then, more air. Wash, rinse, repeat. There is no change in the man’s appearance. His face is still drawn and discolored, still that light turquoise color. His body is still limp. I push on anyway. This goes on for about a minute and a half. It feels like forever.

I hear the noise, but it doesn’t register right away. It’s in between breaths, and it’s very quiet. Nearly imperceptible to me at first,  and then when it registers what’s going on, the sound fills the air and everyone close-by can hear it. It’s a gasp. It’s his gasp. It’s coming from the dead man. I hear it again, and again. I look at his chest and I see that it’s slightly rising up and falling down again. These aren’t big breaths, but they’re his own. He’s breathing on his own again.

I look at his face, and there’s suddenly a peachy color returning to his cheeks.  The girl notices, too, or maybe she notices me noticing, and her face registers a look of elation. He’s breathing on his own. Breathing on his own. He’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s breathing on his own. She lets out a stifled yell, a cry of joyous exhaustion and relief. He’s breathing again.

Jackpot, I got one!

I notice that the chanting boy is gone. He has simply up and vanished. I sometimes wonder if he had ever really even been there at all. The man on the ground now has a weak pulse. I feel it softly beating on the side of his neck, and I almost don’t believe what I’m feeling. I go back for another touch, and then another. It’s barely there, but his heart is beating, and there’s air flowing into his lungs, and he’s alive.

Amazing.

Also, not fun.

0 out of 0 — would not recommend.

The girl is lying beside the man now, and she’s curled up in a fetal position, cuddled up close to him.  She’s sobbing now, and giving words of thanks. She’s not thanking me, she’s saying thanks to, God, perhaps? I am too, in my own way. I’m just thankful the whole thing is over. I stand up, and my head feels like it’s filled with ginger ale. Everything goes fizzy inside of my skull. My eyes see bright spots, my body goes numb, and I lose consciousness.

I’ve fainted.

I’m only out for 10 or 15 seconds probably, and I come to, in the arms of a stranger.  

It’s a guy, and he’s helping me to my feet.  

“Are you okay, buddy?” he asks me.

I tell him, “Yeah, thanks.”

I look at the man on the ground and I see that there are event staff members attending to him now. They’ve finally shown up with an oxygen mask and a stretcher, moments after I finished my resuscitation efforts. They arrived in a golf cart. Their timing is just fine. The man is still critical, but he isn’t dead anymore. He isn’t dead. I hear the sound of whirring, a helicopter landing somewhere nearby.  He’ll be getting air-lifted out of here, the overdosed man, and he’ll be taken to a hospital where doctors can help him. That’s good. He’s on his way now, getting a med-flight off of the mountain, and to a place with professional healthcare resources. He’ll be okay. At least for today.

The stranger is still holding me up. He starts guiding me away from the crowd, back in the direction to where my tent is. I look around me and I see an intense and overwhelming sight. All of the people who had been snapping pictures of the dying man, crowding around and laughing and jumping and summoning their friends to come and watch, who had been completely wrapped up in the shock of the moment, are now gathering close to me.  

They’re crying now, and many of them are reaching out and touching my face.  People are hugging one another. People are trying to hug me. I’m being swarmed.  The shock of the situation has ceased now, and the emotional gravitas of what has occurred is starting to sink in. The stranger who is holding me carries me away from the crowd. I am very grateful to him for this.

I want to get far away from what has just happened. I want to go back to my tent and I need to lay down. I look back and notice that the crying girl is gone. I think to myself that she must be riding on the helicopter on the way to the hospital. I hope she’s feeling better.  

I want to thank the praying man for helping me, but he’s long gone if he was ever there. I get back to where my tent is, and I thank the man who carried me back.

He tells me, “No prob, dude.  That was amazing.  Thank you!” and he walks away.