I wonder if he was running on instinct… I watched a man die on the subway a few years ago. It’s more common than you think - NYC subways carry millions and millions in the course of a day. People die and there is never a good time for it to happen to anyone.
There was an older gentleman sitting across from me on the M train. It was about 6:30am, so I didn’t think much of it when he started leaning over. It was when he kept going when most people would jerk awake that about 5 of us took action. We asked if anyone knew CPR in our car, and when we pulled into the next station, we held the doors open and shouted for a doctor (there was a firefighter on the train with us who knew CPR, because that’s how things are in NYC). No response during CPR. The older gentleman’s lips were turning blue.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics took over and after 2 minutes of no reaction, I watched something that will always haunt my soul existentially, the way this pic does: The paramedic yelled at this man that he had to get up because he’d be late for work. And he got a response. I don’t know if the older man made it, but he had a pulse when they took him up the stairs to the ambulance.
We all got back on the train and headed off to work. And I sat there completely traumatized by the fact that this man was such a slave to his job that the threat of being late to work restarted his heart. It’s been over 10 years and I’m still not sure how or to what degree it affected me. Only that it did. I’m not bothered by not knowing. Sometimes you have to let the heavy sit to understand the weight before you can put it down.
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