Real Life Heroes

I went to the store the other day. A quick lunch time trip to pick a few things up. When I walked back to my car, there was a delivery truck blocking me in. GREAT. As I made my way across the parking lot, I heard someone on a cell phone saying "I think there's a dog in a car." Ok, Summer. Dogs. Hot cars. Someone standing near my car on a cell phone. I don't have a dog. Rounded the car next to mine. No dog in the car. Did someone hit my car?

Nope. There was a man laying on the ground between my car and the one next to mine.

Not a dog.

Poor guy is flat on his back with maybe three people standing over him, one of them on the 911 call.

"Do we need to do something? Is he having a heart attack?" I ask.

"They told us not to touch him," one of the people tells me.

He's breathing. His eyes are open, and I'm thinking the sun is going to blind him. It's a bright day. His eyes roll back. People are talking to him, trying to get a response. He's not talking. One woman asks him to squeeze her hand. Nothing.

One of the people look at me, realize this is MY car we're next to, and says, "you can probably go if you want to." Well I could, if I wasn't going to run this poor man over by moving my car.

The police show up and take over, and then the ambulance. Mr. Man doesn't quite know what's going on, and while they start to move him, he starts to panic.

The police and the EMTs were very professional, calming, going about their job. The rapid manner in which they are able to acquire information is startling. One of the EMTs says this man was at the hospital yesterday, or maybe even today. Just from getting his ID. I'm sure that helps them to understand what happened to him, or at least an idea why this happened.

While I camp out next to my car, because now the delivery van is gone but I'm blocked in by the fire department ambulance AND a fire truck, my five minute trip to the store has become an hour, and I'm getting my Vitamin D fix standing in the sun in the parking lot rather than on the deck at home. And you know what? I don't mind. Let these guys do what they have to do.

When I first found that man lying next to my car, I thought he might be dead, with his eyes open, not moving, flat on the ground. And then you notice he's breathing. THAT's when I started wondering what I could do for him, but thankfully, someone else was already on top of it. Good neighbors who might easily not have seen the poor guy lying in between cars in a parking lot. People who took the extra time to make the call, to stay with him. And finally, the first responders who treated him.

Real life heroes. All of them.

(And people wonder where authors get their ideas)