Not Boring!

If there is anything I can't say about this weekend, it's that it was boring. By far, very not boring! So after Friday's debacle, we got up early on Saturday morning and made our way down to the DC area. We stayed in Bethesda. My roommate and I worked out the driving thing. I had printed out directions to the church and back, and she felt a little more comfortable about driving. Her friends managed to make it to the hotel on their own. They were going to take the car and go to the funeral. I was going to get some sleep and then figure out my plans. I had the privilege of meeting a fellow blogger, the lovely AsianMistress of City Sparkle. We had dinner and parted ways - I met up with some classmates from college at Lauriol Plaza and she went on to Chloe. She was kind enough to give me a ride. (AM, I hope you're okay. Remember: you're beautiful and you shouldn't walk into bars with any lofty expectations.) But on the way to meeting AM, I had a fairly harrowing experience. On the way down the Metro escalator, a man passed out and fell down the steps in front of me. He crumpled like a rag doll and took a header at one point, and he seemed to convulse slightly for a short period of time. He woke up later on, and seemed okay, but he needed to see a doctor and he didn't want to. Of all the places... no signal as we were entering the station. Another couple in front of me and a man behind helped. We had to yell up to the people leaving the station to call 911. I told a man below us to get the station manager. Someone eventually managed to shut off the escalator, I am not sure who. And then came our feeble attempt to administer first aid. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. It seemed very shallow, and at one point I thought he wasn't breathing, but he was. The couple straightened out his legs; he'd landed with his knees bent underneath him. I tried to make sure that his head was okay and we began to administer some form of cpr. The woman started to do compressions, and I was trying to remember the right way to give him breaths and was about to attempt it, but then it seemed that he was breathing, so we stopped. Eventually the men moved him, but that was a royal mess. I said that we shouldn't move him, but they did. Thank God the man didn't have a neck injury because we would have aggravated it or killed him by moving him in the rag doll fashion that we did. Once we had him laid out on the station floor, I loosened his clothing, and was in the process of remembering that we should elevate his legs when he woke up. He was a little confused at first, but he knew his name and where he was from, and where he was going. He was trying to go to the Wizards game. Everyone was imploring him to go to the hospital. He had a cut on his forehead, and the convulsions had scared us. He needed to know why he blacked out. He eventually decided not to go to the game, but he was not inclined to go to the hospital. I stuck around long enough to talk to EMS. They didn't take long to arrive. I told them what I saw; they needed to know that he convulsed while he was unconscious. He told me and the station manager that he had some shortness of breath before he couldn't remember anything else. I sincerely hope that he sought medical attention. I was disturbed for the whole ride downtown to meet AM. I got there first, and I was happy to wait for her at the bar. I did something stupid, though. I drank on an empty stomach. The last thing I'd eaten was a McGriddle meal around 7 am. I got myself a mojito. It was refreshing at the time, but probably contributed to a headache I had later. We ate and I had another mojito. It was great to meet her, and she's really sweet in person. But it should be fairly obvious from reading her blog. I met 2 classmates from undergrad, and one girl I hadn't seen since we were in Korea - almost 9 years! We had a great time. We (unfortunately) went to Adams Morgan. I will say right now that I hate Adams Morgan. Too many drunken kids. It's just not my scene. That plus the fact that parking is nigh impossible without circling for at least a half hour. So we went salsa dancing at Habana Village. One of my friends teaches ballroom dancing, and she had a friend that we met there that also taught ballroom. He taught her some of what she knows. He's such a drama king, but that's what makes him so good. I felt feeble yet another time that night - in my rusty ballroom skills. They say I did alright, but in typical me-fashion, I am so busy trying to do it right that I'm not having as much fun as I could. I just felt stiff, and the headache I mentioned before didn't help. We all ended up feeling a bit tired and so we made it an early night. We cruised a bit looking for food out toward Bethesda but there is no IHOP around there. WTF? That sucked. They dropped me off at the hotel and then parted ways. Today, we dropped off my roomie's friends at the airport and had a nice drive back up. Thank God that the traffic wasn't bad, and there weren't too many idiots. So where does this leave me? Seriously contemplating taking a first aid class to refresh my first aid training. I felt so inadequate - there was a life that was in my hands, and if it was just me and him in a worse way, he would have slipped through my fingers. And I don't think I could handle having that on my soul. I felt paralyzed and sluggish by my fear and I was hampered by not remembering. I couldn't do that again, I can't let someone's life be in danger and not be able to help effectively. I felt my heart sinking, I should have gone and administered the breaths - but time slowed down and I froze up. If things had been worse, he would have slipped away. And I'm also desperately in need of practicing my salsa, and other ballroom skills. I'm tired of being inadequate.