Blogabroad
by Mary Pinckney Waters

April 27, 2006 - My next course

I saw a man die today.

The third floor of Karstadt, this gargantuan German department store, has a cafeteria. I went there for lunch and ordered beef roulade, mashed potatoes and gravy, jumbo white asparagus, and tomato wedges with mozzarella balls. I sat down in the nonsmoking section and looked at my plate. Two fat, eggroll-looking pouches. I started eating the first roulade too fast. I get way too excited about food. I had almost finished it when a woman screamed.

An old man sitting behind me had fallen backward in his chair onto the floor. Some people rushed over to him. He was gasping sporadically in loud, strained shrills. A few people tried to talk to him, a few tried to firmly pat his face. Others went through a bag that had been lying in front of him. An insulin syringe encased in a red plastic container lay on the table. A woman injected him. He had already urinated on the floor and had started bleeding from his nose.

Many others had already begun eating their food again, even those sitting close by. I couldn't eat.

After a few minutes his breaths became more and more seldom. These few minutes just hung there. I knew they were pivotal; it was so obvious to everyone that they were pivotal! But it was as if everyone tried to ignore them and let seconds just move behind shoulders.

"Verstehen Sie mich?" (Do you understand me?) asked a Karstadt employee every 30 seconds or so, between walking in a helpless semi-circle around the man in waiting for the paramedics. The old man never responded, but instead unleashed numbingly loud attempts for air every now and then. It was as if his lungs and throat were echoing throughout the whole dining hall.

I knew he needed CPR. I asked if anyone knew it, and they stared back blankly. Not once was it mentioned. I had taken a life-saving course about 10 years ago, when I first started babysitting, but didn't remember it well enough to perform it in a life-or-death situation. I felt helpless. I just sat there, staring at my almost-full plate of food, watching other people eat with expressionless faces, looking back at the old man on his side with brown-red drops by his head and a clear puddle of piss underneath him.

"Oh Gott, seine ganze Haut wird blau!" (Oh god, all his skin is turning blue!) said a woman watching the situation. Finally two paramedics entered, first walking briskly into the cafeteria and, upon seeing the man's condition, running toward him.

First thing they did: CPR. The man's face and forearms looked coated with gray-blueish eyeshadow. The woman pushing on his chest counted by thousands in German, and I walked to the station where you return cleared plates, theoretically. I sat back down near the emergency scene in hopes of seeing the man breathing again on his own. Two more paramedics had joined the effort now and were hooking up various machines.

A girl about eight years old walked off the elevators with her grandparents, who immediately grabbed her arm, shooing her away from the commotion - "Nicht gucken, nicht gucken!" (Don't look, don't look!). She couldn't turn her head.

Right after that a couple Karstadt employees walked up with three coat stands and hung two light-blue fleece blankets between them, covering up the scene. The paramedics had been doing CPR for at least five minutes by then and were still going. I left.

What if I had known CPR? I'm not aiming for sentimentality here, to ask a million "what if" fate inquiries and tell myself it's my fault that people die. No. It’s pointless to blame myself for what I can't help. It’s not about blaming anybody.

But if I had known CPR, maybe I could have helped. It’s not that hard to learn, and what it potentially returns … There's no excuse not to know it. I’m taking one more course next semester. Maybe you will, too.

Mary Pinckney Waters welcomes your comments and feedback: marypwaters@yahoo.com