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A friend from Australia was over so I took him out to show him the city by night, just as we were leaving a quite bar there was a sudden commotion amongst the staff. One looked to me desperately and asked me to come help...
I jumped the bar, the girl was having troubles breathing and one of the other 45kg staff members was trying to give her the Heimlich Manouver. I grabbed the girl in trouble and started to try to give her the Heimlich manoveur without cracking her ribs - I suggest you go read up about it now in case you ever need to do it. After several attampts and nothing coming out the girl dropped, barely able to breathe, a quick thinking friend then beeped the horn of her car that she had run off to get at the first sign of trouble. I picked the girl up, jumped back over the bar with her and ran to the car putting her inside, a quick look at her hysterical friends and I turned to my mate "I better go, no one here looks like they know any First Aid", so I jump in the other side and cradled the girl with her face next to mine so I could keep a close eye on her. We take off to hospital, luckily only a 5-10 minute ride away. Though with the adrenaline pumping and 3 hysterical girls screaming and crying it seemed much longer. I kept calling the girls name and telling her to stay, do not go - in both English and Thai. She went. She stopped breathing. Her eyes rolled back then closed. If her friends were hysterical before then they went crazy now as panic set in at seeing their friend dying right before their eyes. I have seen people die before on numerous occasions but this is the first time I have been holding someone as they passed away. I immediately gave her 3 pumps to the chest and a big breath, doing the CPR that I have been trained to do (a) at primary school (b) at high school (c) for my Bronze Medallion surf lifesaving award (d) my army training. Noting that a bunch of mucous came out with the breath I skipped the cardio massage and gave her another 2 big breaths.... she started breathing again and her eyes opened. (Wikipedia's current entry says that CPR can't bring someone back - big news there whichever idiot wrote that entry - the reason I learned it so many times is that it does help and it does stop someone dying, especially drowning victims which is a major cause of death in Australia) Reassuring her friends and continuing to call her name and telling her not to leave we were now getting close to the hospital... She stopped breathing again. I quickly administered more CPR and saw her take one breath unaided before we pulled up (rather run up the gutter and got stuck) in front of the hospital, I opened the door and ran her into the emergency room. I waited about 15 minutes when the Doctor on duty gave me a thumbs up and I took my leave. A few nights later I spoke to the manager of the bar and he said she was back at work after 2 days off and she was OK and said thankyou. I'll drop in soon and see how she is and what the actual problem was. I almost never go out to the bars at night time (or day time) I am glad that I was there this time as surely there would have been complications if I wasn't there. Yay. Go team Conan. Honestly I feel very 'flat' about the whole thing though I am glad I was there. *** Please learn CPR it only takes a few hours and could save the life of a loved one - imagine how you would feel if your spouse or child died in your arms just because you did not know what to do. Take a Red Cross CPR course in 1 hour of your time or take 10 minutes to read and reread this page so at least you know basically what to do***
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