Saving Lives

When one saves a life, the last thing one wants to find themselves asking is, "Was this worth it?"

I find I ask more often than I like. It is one thing to bring back someone who had a heart attack that was a freaky thing. It is entirely another to bring back people who are 20-something or 30-something who helped themselves to get to this point with drugs. (Sadly, the drug of choice in Parsippany is heroin. This is a bigger death sentence than the usual drug choices.)

When you walk into a room to find a young person receiving CPR, it is shocking. When I did CPR on people who were in their 50s and up, it is fairly cut and dry. Overexertion leads to too much stress on the heart and someone who has been ignoring their health goes down. When we have a positive outcome, that person almost always goes on to use that second chance to really turn their lives into healthy, active living. It's amazing. And if you run into them on the street, you see a wholly different person.

The dead person we saw did end up having a positive outcome. I have mixed feelings, however. I know I should be feeling positive about it. Statistically, however, most people who ended up clinically dead from drugs (especially heroin) do it again. Usually they come up on the radar immediately after the first trip down Death Row. I've lived this already. And every time I go through this, I find myself asking again if we did something meaningful.

I will always do everything to in my power to save someone - we all do. If I become blase to this, it is time to quit. If I stop questioning things, well, then I'll be dead. So I guess this is normal. Which begs the question, "What is normal?" I can't be the only one who wonders if this was worthwhile. Right?

Here's looking at the positive outcome and hoping this person and everyone else uses that second chance to really grab life by the reigns and do everything to keep it.

I hope so.