Helping a Neighbor

Many members of CERT can tell you stories where their training was used in a real-life incident. For me, my story happened last year.

Late one night, I heard loud banging on my apartment door. At first, I thought maybe it was someone who came home drunk knocking on the wrong door, but something told me that wasn’t right, so I walked quickly towards the door and looked out the peephole. It took me 5 seconds to get to the door, but it felt longer. Then I heard them banging on the next door and I heard “HELP!”. I opened my door, and as soon as I did, the lady who lives in the apartment across from me, ran up and grabbed my arm, begging for help. She said her husband passed out and hit his head and was not responding.

I felt a pit in my stomach and slight fear that I wouldn’t know how to help. I pushed that down fast. I looked at my husband, who was now at the door too, and told him to call 911. She ran back inside her place. I put on my slip-on shoes and walked over. As I knocked on her door to ask if I could come in, a neighbor from downstairs ran up and asked how they could help. I told her they are having a medical emergency and 911 has been called. Since we live in a gated community and the gate never opens to sirens like it is supposed to, I asked her to get her gate clicker and make sure the emergency vehicles could get in and to guide them to this apartment.

Then my neighbor next door, let’s call him Stan, comes out and says he knows first aid; I told him to come with me. We went inside. Her husband, the patient, was now up and walking towards the bedroom with her help. My husband came in and handed me the phone with 911 on it and left as he didn’t know what else to do. I put 911 on speaker, gave them my name, the patient’s current status, and said the wife was here to answer questions about the patient.

The patient began asking for water and Stan said “I will get water!” and the 911 water operator and I both yelled “No water!”. Stan asked why not, and I said “because there is a concern that he may throw up, making things worse” and the 911 operator agreed. At this time, the patient passed out again. This time he was in a very confined space. I guided the wife and Stan to put him in the recovery position on the floor as I could not reach him easily and they were closer.

The wife became very distraught and could no longer communicate with 911, so I took that over fully. The wife was now completely covering her husband’s head with her body. Since we did not know why he was passing out, I kept checking on him in case he stopped breathing and I had to administer CPR. It took minutes for the first responders to arrive, but it also felt like forever. 911 then said we could hang up now. Stan and I cleared a path in their very cluttered hallway so that the gurney could get through easier and then left the apartment so the professionals could do their job.

I was amazed how calm and clear headed I felt throughout the incident. And to be honest, I didn’t really do much. However, my husband and my neighbors told me that they were impressed by the way I helped without hesitation, that I knew what to do, gave clear directions to everyone, and stayed calmer than they could have. And for that, I truly have CERT to thank.